Dear Ma
by paganpunk2
Summary: When Jayne's actions force the rest of the Serenity crew to admit that he really IS a Big Damn Hero, what will be the consequences? Reviews welcome!
1. Post

"Dear ma..."

That was the farthest he'd gotten in half an hour. Two lousy words that didn't really mean much of anything. "Dear ma_."_ _Maybe Simon is right_, he mused. _Maybe I am stupid as a monkey. Can't even figure out a way to dance around gettin' hurt, and it's only a gorram letter. She ain't even here to give me that killer stare of hers, and I still can't manage to hide a tiny little bullet hole from 'er._ He paused, frowning even more deeply. _Guess that's what makes her such a good ma._ Sighing, he shifted restlessly, trying to find a more comfortable position, and winced as he pulled on stitches and tight, swollen skin. Giving up, he let his head drop back against the wall, the worn eraser of his pencil tapping rhythmically against the mostly blank paper. "Dear ma..."

It had started a couple of weeks earlier when Kaylee had bounded down the ladder to his room, carrying post. From the size of her grin as she waved the crumpled envelope impatiently before his half-conscious face he'd guessed immediately who it was from. "Open it!" she'd demanded, barely able to contain herself.

"Wha...huh?" he had spluttered, trying to shake off the drowsiness that came along with being woken from a mid-afternoon snooze. "Girl, can't you see I'm tryin' to sleep?"

"But you've got _post_, Jayne! And it's from your ma!"

"A' course it is. Don't know nobody else who'd take the time, Kaylee girl." _Unless it was explosive or somethin'. Then I can think a' lots would find the time to address me a post. _

Realizing that the fresh post was the only thing that had gotten Kaylee excited and that there was no need for him to drag himself from his bed to shoot somebody, he let his eyes slip shut again.

"Jaaaaayne," she'd begged, pawing at his arm. "C'mon, read it, please?" Kaylee pleaded, sitting on the edge of the bed by his legs. "Am I crowdin' ya?"

"No," he replied, letting himself drift. "You're fine." Knowing full well that Kaylee would sit there, staring at him morosely, until he opened his letter and read it to her, he looked at her through half-closed lids. "Why d'you like hearin' my ma's letters so much, anyways? Ain't your folks writin' you?" He angered at the idea that Kaylee's parents might have slowed down on their letters; he liked the special smile she wore on days when she got post from home, and the thought of someone forgetting her didn't sit well with him.

"They write plenty, I guess. Well, it ain't near enough, but how could it be unless I was really home?"

"Then they wouldn't need to write," he pointed out. "You ain't answered my question."

"I just like 'em, that's all. My ma writes like they taught her in school, all kinda tryin' to be proper, but your ma...I mean, she writes like she talks, don't she?"

Jayne laughed a little at that. "Yeah, she does."

"Right. I like that. And besides, it makes me feel close to you."

"What do ya mean?"

She ducked her head a little, smiling. "Well, 'cause we're the same, Jayne. I mean, we're both from the same kind a place. Fields and cows and doin' whatcha can with whatcha got. It's somethin' special. Ain't nobody else on Serenity got that, the same sort of upbringing, like we do with each other." As she spoke she lay her hand gently on his arm.

He stared at her for a moment. "I reckon we do, at that," he agreed quietly. _Gorram it girl, you can see that but you still go after that _hun dan _doctor? Well, I guess mebbe not so much lately, ya haven't been. He's been makin' ya cry. I ought ta rough him up some for that, but it's probably just make ya cry more. Wouldn't do a gorram bit of good for how ya see me, neither. _He sighed silently, then squeezed her fingers briefly before moving to open the letter. Maybe it would make them both feel better. "You sure, now?"

"Of course! 'Sides, you always listen whenever I want to read you my letters."

"Did you get one, too?"

"Yeah. But read yours first."

"Alright, but you gotta read your's after," he muttered, trying to sound begrudging and failing, at least to his own ears. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to hide how happy being around Kaylee made him. She reminded him of what it felt like to be carefree, a feeling he'd missed since leaving home. There were worries, there were always worries, but they seemed so much lighter when she was smiling at him. Glancing over to make sure she was paying attention-she was, her eyes riveted to the thick paper in his hand-he read in a voice that would have shocked Simon out of his shoes with it's clarity and ease.

"Dear son," he began, drawing out the pause so that Kaylee would give him a playful glare. "Got your last letter today, was real glad to see it. Sounds like your doin' just fine, but then you always could make somethin' out of nothin', just like your pa." He felt a swell of pride at that; he may only have been nine when his father died of a wasting illness, but he remembered the man's gentleness and stubborn capability in providing for his family even at his weakest, and to have his mother compare him positively to his forbear was a real ego boost. Kaylee grinned seeing his cheeks flush slightly, knowing from many half-drunken conversations about days gone by how much the compliment meant to the mercenary.

He cleared his throat past the lump that had formed there at the thought of his pa. "We surely did appreciate the money you sent us this past time, like always we put it to good use. It came just in time for Mattie's medicine, so it was a real blessin'." Frowning at the mention of his brother's fragile constitution, Jayne read on quickly, hoping for more news about the wayward youngster. "He's been strugglin' a bit with the winter and all, but you know he always do. Real good about it, he won't cry much cause he says it wouldn't be right to complain when you're out in the cold stars providin' for us all by your lonesome and he can be next to a nice fire near all the kinfolk..."

She saw him bite at the inside of his lower lip nervously. He was always nervous about Mattie during the winters on the tiny speck of dirt the Cobb brood called home, and she knew he was counting the days until the sun would start to warm those distant fields, and in turn his doted-upon younger sibling. "Jayne?" she asked, touching his shoulder gently when he didn't keep reading. "She say anything else?"

"Yeah...when he says that I always wish ya were home, but at the same time I know that there's other responsibilities you got to take care 'a. I ain't a sentimental woman, son, you know that, but I can say with no feelin' of weakness that I do rest easier knowin' you got a family out there with ya. Might not be real kinfolk, but sometimes a body can find somethin' mighty close to it." Since when, Jayne wondered confusedly, had his mother been a philosopher? Usually her letters were brief and to the point, offering only what bare pieces of news she had time to scribble down between running the farm and taking care of Mattie, but this missive ran over two full pages. It was damn confusin'. Then again, it _was _winter...

"It _is _winter there, Jayne," Kaylee said suddenly, echoing his thoughts. "Things always quiet down on our farm when there's snow on the ground. Maybe she just had a bit more time than normal."

He raised an eyebrow at her voicing of his internal monologue. "Girl, you keep readin' a man's thoughts that way an' he's like to think you're goin' as crazy as our Moonbrain."

She just shrugged, grinning. _Gotcha, Jayne. You called River 'our' Moonbrain. Like it or not, we're a family, and you, me, and your ma all know it._ "You ain't done readin' yet," she pointed out.

"I'm real grateful to that captain of yourn that he took ya away from that Marco. I didn't like the way you was starting to sound in your letters when you was with him, but since you got away from that you've been soundin' more like the fine boy I always figured you'd turn out as." He stopped, shaking his head. "Gorram, but this is embarrassing stuff to be readin' out loud, Kaylee girl. I dunno what's gotten in her, writin' all this sappy stuff," he complained.

"Aw, it ain't so bad. 'Sides, she's right on the money." It was Jayne's turn now to glare at her, trying desperately to defend his reputation, but she just smiled back at him until he went on sharing the letter with her. Much to his delight, it turned away from personal insights and towards farm business, catching both of their interests.

"The cows are doin' real good, too. Your Clemma girl, you remember her I know, you raised her right up from a calf, well she's gone and dropped a fine pair of calves for us, a real stout heifer what will give good milk in a couple years and a stocky little bull who'll fetch a nice price at the butchers. He was awful skinny when she dropped him, I was sure right off he was gonna just wither away, but now he's figured out where the chow is he's gettin' mighty ornery. Reminds me a fair bit of you as a youngster."

Kaylee burst out laughing at that, nearly falling from where she sat perched on the edge of the bed. Jayne looked up at her, his face red now not from pride but from mortification. If he'd thought to read ahead, he would have skipped that line, but he was so used to sharing everything from home with Kaylee that he'd read right through it. _Thanks, ma. That's how I want her to think of me, as an ornery bull-calf._ Although, he had to admit, the comparison was sadly accurate, since his job description on any and all missions could easily lead him to the proverbial meat-grinder's. Still, he would have at least preferred being compared to a full grown bull, instead of some mewling little calf that no one had expected to make it long.

Giggles mostly under control, Kaylee poked him. "She say any more?"

"Just a little." _Don't matter what she thinks of me, anyway, only man she ever thinks about as a man anymore is the Doc, and he ain't half the man she thinks he is. If he was, he'd pay a lot more attention to her._ "We're lookin' forward to spring here on the farm like always, hopin' the crops will do good so maybe you can take a break from workin' and come home for a spell. Does a body good to see it's kinfolk every once and a while, and it's been so long since you was home I sometimes wonder if I'd recognize ya anymore. Well, I reckon I'd know ya, you always did take after your pa in looks and I don't guess that's changed none. I sometimes gotta wonder that you ain't hitched up with no one yet, but then I guess that'll come in good time, it's good to be young while you can. Take care of yourself, son, and know that your kinfolk are thinkin' 'bout ya whenever we can. Love, your ma." He glanced at the bottom of the page, reading the note scrawled there, and chose not to mention it. Kaylee, however, was craning her head around to catch a glimpse of the loopy handwriting, and saw the postscript.

"She says to say hi to me?" she asked, sounding surprised. "Why, she even spelled my name right!"

"Well it ain't exactly a difficult name to spell, girl," he half-growled. "And what are you doin', peekin' at other people's mail? Ain't you got your own to gawk at?"

"Aw, you mentioned me in your last letter!" Kaylee squeaked delightedly. "What did you say about me, Jayne, hmm?"

"I just told her ya been keepin' the engines runnin' good. Ain't nothin' special about that. Don't know why she put that bit in there, maybe just so I'd know she done read my note. Gorram it." Realizing that he honestly looked disturbed that his mother had addressed her so directly, Kaylee contained her joy at being recognized by her friend's kin.

"Oh, come on and smile. You always smile when ya get post from home. That's why I brought it to you, you've been so gloomy the last few days I wanted ya to smile some."

"_Ai ya,_ Kaylee, this is one screwy letter. My ma ain't never written all...emotiony...like that," he said, waving the paper vaguely.

"She just misses ya, Jayne. Nobody likes bein' separate from their kin for so long. I bet Mal would let ya have a few days off next time we're near, if you asked him. Maybe even lend ya the second shuttle."

Jayne snorted derisively. "I bet he won't." _You and the Shepherd are about the only people on this ship who think I'm worth much, Kaylee girl. I'd never say it to ya, because you wouldn't believe me, but the others ain't too fond of me, I don't think. You and him are the closest to kin I got out here, no matter what my ma thinks. Really just you. I like the Shepherd, but he ain't quite kin. Ain't never had no preachers in our family. Good friend, though; he does rate that, surely._

The corners of her pretty mouth turned down at his tone. "Don't be silly. Mal would understand. You just ask him next time we're close by. You'll see. He can be nice."

"Not to me he can't."

She rolled her eyes, knowing it was pointless to argue when he was in a bad mood like this. "Okay, sour puss. You just sit here and be miserable, then. I thought maybe your ma's post would make ya feel better, but I guess I was wrong." With that, she stood up and headed towards the ladder, preparing to leave.

"...Kaylee?" he'd called after her just before her boots vanished. Her head had popped back into the room. "...Ain't you gonna read yours?" Without realizing it he gave her his best puppy-dog eyes, not wanting her to leave.

She grinned mightily, triumphant, and jumped back to the floor. "I _knew_ post would make ya feel better!"


	2. On the Job

"Gorram it, ma," he whispered later, after Kaylee had left. "You coulda really blown it mentionin' her like that." It was his own fault as much as anyone's, he knew; after all, he went on enough about Kaylee in his letters to his ma that the older woman had to know he was infatuated. Infatuated...he'd always liked that word, liked big phrases in general so long as pompous idiots like Simon weren't using them. He'd have to remember to drop a few seriously polysyllabic words soon, just to see the Core boy squirm at the niggling thought that maybe Jayne was more than just a 'man-ape'.

He was about to roll over and finish his nap when Mal's unmistakable pounding sounded at his door. He didn't bother to answer, knowing the captain would come down no matter what he said. Sure enough, thirty seconds later he was in the room, half-glaring at him like he always did. _It's like he constantly thinks I've gone and done somethin' wrong, and he's just waitin' to catch me at it. That glare's his standby mode, so he don't have to screw his face up much when he finds a reason to be mad at me._ "Somethin'?" Jayne asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"You're asleep in the middle of the day," Mal commented, deadpan. Simply stating a fact.

"Yeah. Somethin' wrong with a person tryin' to catch some shut eye?"

"Odd time a day for it."

"I was nappin' earlier, but Kaylee came in with the post and woke me up. Just finishin' what I started."

"Uh-huh." He looked skeptical, glancing as he always did towards the loaded gun rack on the wall. _Never understood why he thinks he needs so gorram many different guns. They all do the same thing, don't they? Never met a man with a bigger gun fetish._ "Be in the cargo bay in an hour. The drop off point's been moved to a bit outside of town. Wash is about to move us there now."

_Time to finish my nap,_ Jayne speculated before his thought was cut off. "I suggest you take that time to eat something and get your guns ready," Mal added as he turned away. "Looks like this'll be an all-nighter, and I don't want to listen to you whine about bein' hungry the whole time we're gone." Without so much as a 'see you later,' Mal ascended, his long brown coat swishing gently out of sight as he stepped into the hallway and slammed the door behind himself.

After a minute of sulking over the captain's less than friendly visit, Jayne rolled onto his side to consider his options. _Lydia? Nah, need to get a new trigger for her still...Cora would do all right, but on a night job I want somethin' the moonlight can really catch..._ His grin spread suddenly as he made a decision. _Of course._ With a slight chuckle, he pulled Vera out of the harem, cradling her protectively. _My best girl. Well,_ he corrected himself, his eyes resting on where Kaylee had sat on his bed a while before, _my best gun, anyway._

Patting the large weapon's well-oiled stock, he headed for the kitchen, zeroed in on food.

_____________________

Finally, a mission had gone smoothly. _About time it did, too,_ Mal thought as he, Zoe and Jayne turned to head back to Serenity, left about a mile away on the other side of the low hills that rimmed the valley the meeting had been held in. _Had enough jobs go south lately I was startin' to wonder if I was losin' my touch._

His pleased review of the night's work was broken by Jayne's voice. "Mal? Somethin' ain't right."

Zoe looked over at him from beneath her eyelids. "What are you talking about, Jayne? We've got the money, they've got the goods, no arguments. The job's done."

"Just...somethin' awful funny in the air." His spine was crawling, had been crawlin' since Mal shook hands for the last time with the ugly little _hun dan_ who'd been carrying the money. The leer on the dealer's face had indicated that the man thought he had somethin' mighty clever in the works, a thought that Jayne didn't relish. "Wish you'd a let me check the perimeter some before the meetin'," he muttered.

"Would you quit with your doom and gloom _go se,_ Jayne?" Mal snapped, turning on him. "Zoe's right. Quit makin' this out to be a trick."

Hurt by Mal's refusal to even consider what he was saying-_why the hell do you keep me around if you ain't never gonna listen when I got somethin' to say about sneaky people and jobs, anyway?-_Jayne clamped his lips together, going silent as he trudged uncomfortably along, falling to walk just behind the captain and Zoe. _It's my job to be suspicious, ain't it? Gorram it, this don't feel right._

When the quiet drew out, Mal glanced back at the unsettled merc, a sense of mild chagrin overtaking him when he saw his defeated posture. _Aw, hell, I didn't mean to make him all pissy. Just hate hearin' him say my plans ain't workin' and that this job-which is perfectly fine, completely in the bag-is gonna go bad on us. It's done, how can it go bad?_ "You're so damn paranoid, Jayne, why don't ya just walk backward for a while, tell us if anybody comes sneakin' up?" He'd meant his words to be a semi-apologetic jibe, and Zoe at least laughed, but Jayne just looked at him, face set like that of a kicked puppy, before slowly spinning and beginning to walk backwards. Somehow the man kept perfect pace with them, stepping easily over obstacles he couldn't see but somehow sensed, and Mal found himself impressed. _Wish I could do that. Break my gorram neck tryin' to walk backwards on flat ground, let alone a place like this. Ain't hardly normal for a body to be able to do that._ He shrugged the thought away, but it was persistent. ..._Wonder if he could teach me to do that?_

_I ain't paranoid, _Jayne told himself. _This just feels wrong. Like somethin's gonna happen._ Scanning the trees they'd come from, he saw nothing that aroused his suspicions any further, which he knew should have pacified his worry. But that little voice of doubt just wouldn't stop pestering him. _Somethin's off..._

He saw it, almost too late, and his stomach clenched. The treed man's hand moved back from positioning the rifle, his hand surrounding the guard as one finger slipped in to nestle securely against the lethal little trigger, squeezing it slowly. S_queeze, don't yank, that's it, son._ His father had told him such on that right shiny day when he'd first held a gun, Jayne remembered wildly as he calculated where the sniper's bullet was intended to go. When it came to figurin' odds and trajectory he was mighty quick, but he was certain it was already too late by the time he realized the gunman's target. He had to try anyway, didn't think the fact, just acted on it-_it's my gorram job, ain't no one else supposed to get hurt, that's what Mal pays me for-_diving suddenly to the side as if he were ducking a bullet rather than attempting to catch one meant for somebody else.

_Mal._


	3. Suspicious Jackass

Mal was in the midst of turning to tell Jayne to go on ahead to Serenity and have Wash get the engines heated up when the full weight of the man hit him, knocking him easily to the ground and pinning him there as a gunshot echoed off the hills. Another shot whizzed by, and a puff of dust went up less than a foot from his head. _Gorram it, Jayne, what'd ya have to go and curse this job for? _he thought less than charitably. A third shot, this time sounding from much more closely as Zoe sighted and fired, dropped the sniper from his tree.

There would be more than one, Mal knew, and he reached for the gun strapped to his hip in order to return fire, his eyes scanning the valley for other sharpshooters. Rather than finding the butt of his pistol, his fingers found Jayne's arm, sprawled out across him. "Gorram it, give me my damn gun!" he shouted, pulling away roughly and rolling onto his knees. As he searched for the source of the shots peppering the ground all around them, the mercenary tightened in on himself, making no move for his weapons. "Ruttin' useless!" Mal swore, kicking at him. "What is this, your latest plan to get me killed and sell the Tams and Serenity to the highest bidder? Ain't gonna work, ya goon." Seeing red over what seemed to be an obvious attempt at betrayal by the still unresponsive figure on the ground, Mal joined Zoe in picking off the men who had been tasked with killing them, moving quickly about the field to make it harder for their adversaries to draw a bead on them. Five minutes after the shooting had begun, Zoe's gun was empty, it's final round buried in the unlucky fool who had charged them, and it was over.

"You all right?" Mal asked, turning to her. After a last glance around the valley, counting bodies and surmising that they had killed everyone, she looked down at herself briefly before meeting his gaze. Eyes dancing from adrenaline, she shrugged.

"Barely a scrape. You?"

"Pissed as hell. Okay besides that."

"Come on, Captain, our jobs always go south," she teased. "You know that."

"This one would have been fine if Jayne hadn't been on their side."

Her eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"Job was goin' just fine until he started up that crazy talk about somethin' bein' wrong."

"Can't fault the man for having good instincts," she shrugged.

"I wouldn't, 'cept he didn't even try to help us fight 'em off. _Go tsao de_ _b__en tian sheng de yi dui rou__1_just pinned me to the ground like he was tryin' to keep me from gettin' my gun, then curled up once I was free so he wouldn't be in the way while they slaughtered us. Probably gone off lookin' to join up with them as soon as we skirted this hill and were out of sight."

"Huh." Her jaw tightened at the idea of betrayal. Part of her-a majority part, in fact-thought it was entirely likely that Jayne had done exactly what Mal said. The small area of her soul that insisted on trusting that people were generally good, though, was aching at the thought. _Would he still do that? At first, yeah, sure, he's a merc, but we've been crew together for too long, ain't we? The man ain't completely heartless, after all._ Without speaking, she spun and walked stealthily to where she could see the spot they'd been standing in when the shooting started. Jayne was still there. _That ain't right. Even if he didn't go turncoat on us, he wouldn't just lay there like that, would he?_ Concern twisting her stomach, she strode forward, her boots leaving deep prints in the dust that had been stirred by the gunfight, and knelt next to him.

Mal came up behind her at a slower pace, keeping alert in case this was a ruse to get them out in the open. The fact that the big man hadn't moved disquieted him a little, but if he had in fact been trying to get them killed then he deserved whatever he got. Putting his back to the two on the ground, he watched the tree line, his lips pursed tightly. _And I was about to let Ariel go completely. Stupid of me. Well, now I know better. Won't happen again, that much is for sure._

"Jayne?" Zoe asked cautiously, one hand on her pistol's grip, ready to draw and fire at point blank range, even as her other stretched out to gently touch him. He didn't respond, and her uncertainty about the entire situation began to grow. _Wouldn't it have made more sense to just shoot the captain instead of tackling him? He was walking behind us, hell he carries two pistols, he could have done both of us at the same time._ She repeated his name, this time with a greater urgency in her voice. Finally she pushed on his shoulder hard enough to roll him over, half expecting his hand to appear from beneath him wielding a blazing firearm. Partway through the movement she gasped, catching sight of the awful pain on his face, and fumbled to keep momentum from throwing him down on his back. "_Jayne?"_ Her now-frantic gaze took in the blood that had turned the dust beneath him into red mud and followed the color to the wound in his chest that was it's source. "Mal, _lao tien ye__2__,_ come here."

He turned quickly, drawn by the dread in her tone. The amount of blood on the ground shook him until he remembered that it was entirely likely that the man bleeding out before him had fully intended that he and Zoe be dead by now. "Caught one of his own bullets. Huh."_ Serves him right..._

Zoe ground her teeth as she produced a clean handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it hard against the ragged hole. "He was holding you down, right?" she asked, easing the mercenary back slowly so she could apply greater pressure.

"_Hun dan _sprawled out on top of me, put his arm over my gun. That's after he knocked into me so hard I'm lucky I don't have a gorram concussion. It was confusin' as hell, too, what with that first shot goin' off at the same time as he hit me."

_If he was trying to keep you from getting your gun, Mal, you wouldn't have gotten it. Could he...did he..._ She knew there had been no blood on his back, and all the shooting had come from behind them, from the direction Jayne had been facing. He'd been on the ground, according to Mal, from the moment the first shot was fired. She couldn't imagine him deciding to wrestle around when he'd had the perfect opportunity to kill them both; Jayne was far from being the brightest person she'd ever known, but he was miles away from simple when it came to figurin' the best way to kill a person and get away with it. In that he outstripped all of them. The pieces began to slip into place, recreating the ambush for her from a very different perspective. "We need to get him to Simon, right now. Bullet's still in him, and his breathing's awful." She winced at the uneven gasps he was taking, unable to help but feel the erratic heartbeat beneath her slippery fingers.

"That bastard is never setting foot on my ship again," Mal exclaimed, looking at her in shock. "And I ain't wastin' the Doc's time draggin' him out here for this piece of _go se_. He _betrayed_ us, Zoe!"

She would have decked him for his stupidity if she hadn't needed to keep her hands where they were. It made sense now. _He was walking backwards, looking at where we were coming from. He hit you right as the gun went off. The man's got eagle eyes, he saw the first one I shot putting you in the cross hairs and did what he always does, acted without thinkin'. _She turned and gave Mal a stony glare. "He didn't betray us, you _sha gua__3_. He saved your miserable gorram life."

1Stupid inbred dog-humping stack of meat

2Jesus, my God, etc.

3Idiot, jackass, fool.


	4. Monologue in the Dust

He stared at her, jaw agape. "He...what?" He shook his head. "No ruttin' way, Zoe. You got that all wrong." He took a step backward, swallowing heavily when his second in command narrowed her eyes and turned back to the man on the ground, one hand searching her pockets for something to replace the already sodden handkerchief. "It's backwards," he muttered.

It wasn't, though. When he thought about it, it made much more sense that Jayne had been trying to save him than trying to get him killed. _Coulda just shot me,_ he realized suddenly. _Coulda had both of us, real easy, if he'd been set on doin' what I thought he was doin'. _He remembered his reaction to the mercenary's prone position during the gunfight. _I called him useless, kicked at him some. _Ai ya, _I hope he don't remember me doin' that. What the hell was I thinkin'? I didn't mean it, Jayne, honest, I was just angry, confused. Thought you were...well, I guess maybe I'm still suspicious on you about Ariel, despite our little talk after the fact. Not that I ain't got every right to be so, but..._ "Gorram it, what did he go and do that for?" he asked aloud.

"If you don't hurry up and get Simon out here, we'll never know," Zoe growled at him. "Or have you forgotten that Jayne's as a much a member of your precious crew as the rest of us?" The last was spat over her shoulder in a tone that Mal had never heard her aim at him before. It hurt to be addressed that way by her; she usually saved that voice for the scum they worked for, and the idea that she was classing him with them was almost more than he could stand. _I know he's crew_, he wanted to say. _Of course he's crew. I just... _ He had just been awful slow to recognize that fact, it seemed. He had never quite gotten around to moving Jayne from the category of 'hired man' to 'crew' in his head, and until now he hadn't really had to worry about protecting him the way he did the others on his ship. Standing in the early sunlight, Mal realized he'd somehow neglected his duty as captain. Furthermore, every moment he wasted staring at Zoe's tense shoulders was compounding his failure.

"I'll...I'll go get the Doc," he breathed quickly, nearly tripping in his hurry to turn away from the bloody tableau and try to salvage some level of self-respect. _What kind a captain just stands by and lets their crew bleed out into the dust?_ He bemoaned as he half-ran over the hill and towards the glittering hulk of Serenity. _No kind, that's what. No good kind, at least. When did I become such a _hun dan_? Don't you dare die, Jayne. Not til I can at least apologize._

Back on the shot-marked dust, Zoe bit her lip. No matter how many times she saw a traumatic injury like this, it always amazed her how much blood there was in the human body. _And Jayne's probably got more than most,_ she reflected, reaching forward to wipe a smear of dirt off of his still face. He was unconscious, she knew, and probably in shock, but pain was still clear on his features. "Sure hope Simon brings a mess of smoothers for ya," she said quietly. "You're gonna be needin' em." She frowned as he moaned and tried to shift under her hands. "Just hold still, now. They'll be back any minute." _Hurry up,_ she pleaded, straining her ears for the sound of the mule starting up and hearing nothing. Mal probably hadn't even made it back to the ship yet. _He ain't got half a chance at this rate_. Figuring that, she took a deep breath, realizing that there were things she needed to say, for herself and for the rest of them, if this was going to be her last opportunity.

"We ain't exactly made ya feel like a part of things, have we?" she asked rhetorically, leaning heavily on her right hand so that her left could pick up the cold fingers closest to her, cradling them. "Least not Mal and I. Kaylee's done a good job of makin' ya civil, and the preacher too. I guess they saw somethin' the rest of us couldn't. Saw the real Jayne Cobb, the one you try so hard to keep hidden. Well, you've gone and lost that mask now; ain't none of us ever gonna forget that you did this, least of all me and the captain. You're a damn fine actor. Maybe the best I've ever seen. I can appreciate that now. I just...just wish I'd realized it was an act sooner. Maybe then I'd a had the sense to let you know how important you are to this boat, even when you're makin' nasty jokes and gettin' sent away from the table. Keepin' us on our toes." She smiled sadly, remembering the first dinner with the Tams and the Shepherd when he'd made such an ass of himself. "It was all actin', wasn't it? Set out to make yourself unapproachable. It worked with Simon, cause he's Core-bred and shies away from anythin' unusual like it's poison. Worked with me and Mal, too, and with 'Nara, and some with Wash. But Book knew ya from the beginning, and Kaylee...well, she maybe knows ya better than any of us. I dunno, Jayne. I guess...I guess I'm just tryin' to say I'm sorry. Sorry I never said none of this before. Sorry...sorry I never saw ya. Sometimes ya just blend in so well, makes it easy for a body to forget that you're more than ya look. Just like anyone else." She fell silent, feeling empty as the fingers on her palm grew steadily colder.

_Probably didn't hear one word of what I said. Well...maybe he caught the drift of it, at least. He deserves to have that comfort. _She raised his hand to her lips, kissing the knuckles softly. "Thank you," she whispered. _You went and saved us all again. Don't know how many times you've saved us before, and none of us said nothin', no thanks or anything. I don't know how we'd a fared if you hadn't taken that bullet for Mal just now; don't know how we'd have gone on without him. _Her train of thought paused as tears pricked the backs of her eyes. _Don't know how we'll go on without you if you don't pull though this. Don't rightly know that we'll be able to._ She shook her head, angry now at her own stupidity as well as Mal's. _You deserved to know all along, and we took that from you. Ain't no way we can ever give it back. You fight through this, though, and I swear I'll try to make it right. Ain't none of us gonna let you feel unappreciated again. Not after what you done here today._

"Gorram it, Jayne," she hissed fiercely. "Just _live._"


	5. Nematodes and Cockroaches

Kaylee awoke with a start, the nightmare that had covered her in cold sweat forgotten the instant she opened her eyes to stare wildly at the ceiling. _That was strange. Don't hardly never have bad dreams since I've been on Serenity. _Despite not being able to remember what had frightened her out of sleep, she was still discomforted, and when the feeling failed to go away after a few minutes she swung her legs out of bed and stood up. _Wish we had some milk I could heat,_ she thought wistfully as she climbed the ladder to the hall, heading to the kitchen in the hopes of finding something to settle her stomach. As she passed the door to Jayne's bunk, she paused. _I wonder if he's up, too?_ Just before she knocked, though, she remembered that he was out on a job with Mal and Zoe. _Darn. Maybe he coulda helped me figure out what I was dreamin'. Dunno why he's so good at pickin' my brain, but he always manages to get me smilin', even if it is with stories Mal would yell at him for tellin' me._ Suddenly curious as to how close it was to daybreak, when the captain had said they might be back, she turned in the opposite direction and headed for the cargo bay, her bare feet and legs chilled underneath her flannel nightgown as she padded silently down the hall.

Just before the hall opened into the walkway over the cargo bay, she heard voices. _Oh, maybe they're back already!_ Excited, she made to quicken her pace, stopping abruptly just out of view when she heard the unusual tone in Mal's voice. She felt a little bad about eavesdropping on the captain and whoever he was talking to, but her guilt fled as she processed the words.

"River. I need Simon, now."

_Mal? Is Mal hurt? Why does his voice sound so strange?_

"It is possible for him to wear too much red," she mused back at him.

Simon's voice entered the room below. "Captain? Is something wrong? I apologize for my dishevelment, River woke me rather unexpec-" Kaylee would have giggled at the sound of the doctor nearly falling over himself, but the awful ball of worry was back in her stomach, distracting her.

"Quit trippin' over yaself and get your bag quick, we gotta get back. Hurry up!" Mal snapped irritably.

"Captain, what-"

"_Just do it_!" he half-screamed, the noise echoing around the cargo bay.

_Who's hurt? _Kaylee asked herself frantically. _If the captain sounds like that, it's got to be Zoe. Oh, if Zoe's hurt, Wash will be so upset. I hope he's not up, maybe Simon can have her all fixed up before he finds out._

"Captain," Simon's voice floated up to her, "where are the others? Where's Zoe?"

_They're both still outside? Maybe Jayne stayed with Zoe. But he coulda just carried her back if she was hurt, he's done it before. Maybe it's bad..._ Her eyes grew wet at the thought that Zoe had maybe been seriously injured.

"Zoe stayed...she stayed back with Jayne."

"With _Jayne? _You left a wounded woman alone with that nematode? My God, we'll be lucky if he hasn't started spitting on her wounds in some backwoods attempt at healing them." The scorn in his voice was so sharp that Kaylee flinched. _Jayne knows better than that,_ she wanted to retort. _He's a lot smarter than you think. And what in the hell is a nematode, anyway? Don't sound like a very nice thing to call a person. _Her mental tirade would have gone on, but Mal's next words froze her to her very core.

"Zoe ain't hurt. Jayne is. Now get your gorram bag, he ain't got time for you to be spoutin' off." His voice dropped so low that Kaylee had to strain to hear it. "Ain't got much time at all."

With a whimper, she sank to her knees in the corridor above the cargo bay, suddenly unable to control her tears. As quickly as she had forgotten it, her nightmare reappeared in her memory, and she shuddered. _I felt it. I felt him gettin' hurt._ _Jayne...oh, please, Jayne... _Burying her face in her hands, she began to sob, her desperate whisperings drowned out as Mal fired up the mule, cursing under his breath for Simon to hurry. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Usually River couldn't sense people, even crew members, when they were more than a ship's length or two from her. Her eyes had flown open in panic, though, when she had been unexpectedly hit with Jayne's realization of the bad spot the treed gunman put them in. The awful tightness that had constricted her breathing a few seconds later and the fading of her connection with the mercenary no matter how hard she grasped at it had told her that it was time to get up. Waking Simon with a shake and a cryptic comment, she had gone to the cargo bay to wait for someone to come back and let her get a sense of what had happened.

Deciding that she now knew enough as Mal hurried to ready the mule for travel, she turned her attentions to the emotional hurricane whirling somewhere over her head. Skipping up the steps quickly-_Girl doesn't like walking on air-_she poked her head around the corner and stared at the mewling Kaylee. When the mule finally screeched out of the cargo bay a minute later and it grew quiet again save the mechanic's stifled sobs, she poked her lower lip out meditatively and settled on the floor across the hall. "Dam is broken," she stated.

Kaylee looked up at her finally, not bothering to wipe at the water still running down her cheeks. "Huh?" she sniffled.

"Good dancers, but the dance would be more fun without masks."

"River...didn't you hear Mal? Jayne...Jayne's..."

"Jayne's dying."

She was certain she felt her heart stop for a long moment at those two words, uttered so factually, as if the deed were done and nothing could change it. "Nooo..." she moaned.

The distress pouring off the woman in front of her made her shift uncomfortably. "Simon could help."

"He ain't...he ain't gonna die?" A surge of hope.

"Maybe not." She shrugged, the frown on her lips deepening. "Simon is stupid. Thinks pretty girls shouldn't spend so much time thinking about dangerous animals. But animals are people, too. Not scary to the pretty girl. Pretty girl likes animals." She twisted a hank of hair around her fingers and stared at it with a cross look on her face.

"River...who's the pretty girl?"

Tilting her head back, she laughed. "Woodsy girl. Farm girl. Loves the smell of earth, and hard work." Her gaze, for the briefest moment as clear and sane as any the mechanic had ever met, leveled. "Loves Jayne, but too stupid to say so. Now...maybe too late." Ignoring Kaylee's stricken expression at the last part, she stood up and flounced away, any trace of mental clarity having vanished. "Cockroaches can survive nuclear blasts," she called back just before she disappeared around the corner.

"Jayne..." Alone in the hall, she wept miserably.


	6. The Jeering of Hippocrates

Mal leapt off of the mule practically before it stopped, pausing only to glare back at Simon as he disembarked at a more controlled speed. "Hurry up," he growled. "Ain't got all day."

Although Simon had written off Mal's concern as they'd raced back to where the other two waited-_God knows Jayne makes a big enough deal out of a scratch, he's probably broken a whole finger or something and somehow managed to work them up about it-_he felt his stomach drop as he drew close and saw how much blood covered the ground. _All right, perhaps he wasn't exaggerating quite so much as I supposed._ Noticing where Zoe was still pressing soaked rags, he gulped, then lifted the rags and fell to examining the wound. "I can't do much," he admitted. "And I can't do anything here. We've got to get him to the infirmary." _It's bad enough that they wouldn't know any better if I just let him... _He tried to banish the thought, pushing at it half-heartedly.

"Can he make it that far?" Zoe asked, sounding skeptical. She watched disapprovingly as Simon waved her away and continued to stare at the injury. _Shouldn't do that, can't stop the bleeding if you don't keep the pressure on. Stupid doctor's gonna kill him._ "Simon, what the hell?" she asked finally when he failed to put the makeshift bandages back down despite having clearly seen all he needed to. He glanced up at her, and she saw it; guilt. He'd been doing it on purpose, watching Jayne bleed out instead of trying to help. "You twisted bastard," she swore at him.

"Zoe, I-"

"Don't give me that." Putting pressure back on with one hand, she grabbed Simon's collar with the other, yanking him close. "Don't mess this up," she warned. "Jayne ain't the only one of us that knows how to make a person die slow."

Mal spoke quietly, breaking them up before Zoe could knock out the only chance they had to save Jayne's life. He'd seen the look on the doctor's face as clearly as Zoe had, and it angered him plenty, but he could deal with that later. Right now, there was a life on the table where his own should have been laying, and Malcolm Reynolds never left a debt unpaid. "Simon. You better help us get him on the trailer. Keep pressure on, like Zoe said. Zoe?" She shot him a look over her shoulder, not having forgotten his earlier pigheadedness. "Get his legs."

He cried out as they lifted him, and Simon nearly shuddered as a bout of fresh blood seeped over his fingers. Everyone assumed that as a surgeon blood didn't bother him, but in fact the exact opposite was true. He hated blood, hated it with such a passion that he'd become a surgeon specifically so he could make it stop coming out, could put it back where it belonged so it would quit bothering him. _I hope I remembered to bring smoothers,_ he thought wildly. _This is going to be a very long ride back otherwise._ _As much as I dislike listening to the flaccid discourse the brute calls conversation, for some reason his screams are even worse._

Mal just grimaced tightly, attending to the wheel of the mule as soon as they had Jayne settled on the trailer. Throwing the machine into gear, he tried to set a pace that would get them home quickly without kicking up dust that could get into the open wound and complicate matters down the road. _If there's a down the road to worry about._ He shook his head, still puzzled as all hell about the events of the morning. _What was he thinkin', jumpin' in front of me like that? _He mused, trying to make himself mad again and failing as the spark of ire was drowned in a pool of worry. _ I can take a bullet as well as anyone. Was completely uncalled for. Gonna have to tell him not to pull such a fool move again when he wakes up...if he wakes up._

Zoe watched Simon openly as he worked on the jolting platform. A smoother, first, and a bit of the misery in the mercenary's visage eased. A quick rustle through the small bag he'd thrown together with Mal breathing down his neck produced a dose of coagulant that would, with any luck, slow the bleeding. _I don't even know what his blood type is,_ Simon realized, his hands pausing for a moment as the thought struck him. He could recite everyone else on the ship's by rote, without even thinking, backwards if he had to. But Jayne's was an unknown. "Do you...do you know his blood type?" he asked cautiously. "He's going to need some."

"He needs more than we've got. And no, I don't." She glowered at him. "Don't you know, _Doctor?_"

"I...um..." Ashamed, he turned away from her. Trying to ignore the ghost of Hippocrates jeering at him in the back of his head, he managed to get a pressure bandage in place before the mule crawled up the ramp and into the bowels of the ship. _How did I become the villain in this?_ He wondered as they swiftly moved Jayne onto a stretcher and towards the infirmary. _It's not like __I__ shot him. _

"The worst pain is invisible," River answered his thought, staring at him moodily from the doorway. Peering at her-_she shouldn't be seeing this-_as he brushed past, he reached out to stroke her hair briefly and looked surprised when she pulled away, sticking her tongue out at him. "Mean old Simon," she whispered. "Silly, silly Simon. You let her get away." She glared before she flitted away from him. "Better fix it. Pretty girl doesn't want to cry anymore."

"River-" he called after her, but was cut off by Mal's hand wrapping tightly around his arm, yanking him backward.

"Think you can worry about your crazy sister later," the captain said roughly, shoving him towards the table. "You got more important work to do right now."

Looking from Mal to where Zoe stood with one hand on the unconscious patient's shoulder, Simon reached a sudden realization. _Something happened out there that changed the personal dynamics between these three. All of a sudden I'm the one with a bad attitude, and Jayne's the life saver. If he dies..._ he swallowed heavily as Mal glowered at him. _If he dies, I get the distinct feeling that I'll follow fairly close behind him._


	7. Spontaneous Combustion

Kaylee hadn't been able to bring herself to look over the edge when they'd brought him in, but from the way they'd been talking she at least knew he was still alive. Shaking, her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach, she stumbled down the stairs, feeling herself grow weak again when she saw the awful mess on the trailer and the line of blood leading away down the hall. She followed it unconsciously to just outside the infirmary, leaning in a shadow where she could watch and listen without being noticed. Mal was blocking most of her view of the figure on the table, but she could see his face, obscured as it was by the oxygen mask someone had slipped on him, and that was enough. She would stand there for all eternity waiting for those bright blue eyes to meet hers again, if that was what it took to make such a thing happen.

As noises began to register, she felt her eyes welling again. _That heart monitor don't sound good. _Simon dropped a scalpel clumsily, and she jumped as it hit the floor. _Gorram it, Simon, this is your job! _She wanted to scream at him. _You're supposed to save him! I know you don't like him none, despite him protectin' you and River same as he does the rest of us, but that ain't supposed to matter. _Her thoughts turned baleful. _You better make him okay. If he dies I won't never forgive you, Simon Tam._

Inside the infirmary Mal turned an absolutely evil look on the doctor as the knife slipped from his hand. "Sorry," Simon muttered ineffectually, reaching out for a replacement and flinching when Zoe slapped it into his hand painfully. "Okay..." _I must calm down. If I can't save him, an Alliance prison will look like a vacation compared to what it seems they are threatening to do to me._ Biting his tongue-a self control tactic he hadn't needed to use since his first year of medical school-he leaned forward and carefully widened the wound, his ears riveted to the monitors humming a few feet away for any change. He knew he had to work fast, but in such a delicate area as this he had to slow down as he dug deeper, searching fruitlessly for the slug that was still trapped somewhere in Jayne's body. Zoe's voice broke his concentration, and he nearly opened up an artery when his hand jerked in surprise.

"Didn't you set up any blood?" The second in command barked, noticing the lack of intravenous _anything_ dripping into their patient.

"I...uh...well, I told you I don't know what type he is! I could hardly be expected to type and cross-match before trying to find the bullet. Unless someone knows what I don't, we can't give him anything!"

"I seem to remember being cajoled into givin' you money to buy plasma back when we was in town. An' that was a couple a days ago. Ain't you got around to buyin' it?" Mal's voice was icy.

_Oh. Right. Plasma. _"...It's in the cooler," Simon whispered finally, turning sheepishly back to his excavation as Zoe moved to set up a unit. _I didn't forget on purpose,_ he tried to convince himself. _I was just...working under adverse circumstances. My life seems to be on the line right along with his, after all._ Even he didn't buy it, so he didn't bother to try it on the others.

They all three turned a minute later when a new voice sounded from the doorway. "Wait," Kaylee said softly, coming into the room. "Don't give him plasma, Zoe. I got what he needs."

"Kaylee," Simon admonished. "You shouldn't be here. I really think you should-"

"I don't give one mite a care about what your clumsy _pe gu _thinks I ought to do, Simon," she cut him off fiercely, protectiveness for the injured man on the table welling up inside of her. "All I know, and all I care about, is that I know what type a blood Jayne needs. It's the same as mine."

Mal raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that, Kaylee?"

"Course I am. I know what would happen if he got the wrong type, I wouldn't say it if it weren't true."

"It won't be enough," Simon said flatly. "You-and apparently Jayne-have a very rare blood type. We can only take a pint or so from you, and he's lost much more than that. Save it, Kaylee, it's not going to do any good." _I'm as good as dead, because he will be soon._

To everyone's surprise, it was little Kaylee, not Mal or Zoe, who slammed the doctor back against the counter. "You shut your gorram mouth, Simon Tam. You don't know thing one about him, not a single thing, and you never bothered to try. Same as you never bothered with me, or with anyone else on this boat. You think when it comes to medical stuff you can just order people around? It's my blood, and if I wanna give it to Jayne that's what's gonna happen. Even if it don't work-which it will, because I know him and he ain't no quitter like you are-at least I'll have tried to save him. You better try, too, because if he dies and I think you didn't work real hard on him, I'll help the captain and Zoe throw you to the gorram Reavers. And I'll be grinnin' while we do it." She stepped back, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks as she crossed her arms firmly. "You ready to stop bein' such an ass?"

His mind went completely blank when she pushed him backward, and it stayed that way until he was moving back to the table, too stunned to answer her but having understood clearly what his options were. He wondered if the absolute certainty, the pure knowledge of what job needed done and how it should get so, that now filled his head was how a man like Jayne, someone so acutely tuned in to the survival instinct, always felt. _It's like walking through ether,_ he thought as he maneuvered the scalpel through another layer of tissue. _I've never been so completely and utterly terrified as I am now, except for a few times with Reavers nearby. And yet my hand is perfectly steady. Because it has to be. If I tried to shoot right now, I would almost bet that I would be nearly as good as Jayne._ He frowned, not liking the obvious logic that if he really were an excellent shot in this state, then the mercenary would probably be an able surgeon in the same mindframe. His postulations would have continued had his blade not fetched up against something decidedly inorganic.

"My God," Simon muttered as he sponged away blood in order to see.

"What is it?" Mal demanded, his voice taut as he tried to see what had grabbed Simon's attention without actually looking at the gaping wound.

"It's like he's taught his internal organs how to duck," he whispered, impressed in spite of himself. The bullet that was glimmering faintly up at him from it's resting place had managed to sever a single major vessel before wedging itself equidistant between Jayne's heart and spine. If he could get it out without damaging either structure, and could suture the vessel adequately, the man would be up and about-albeit carefully-in a week. _Four days,_ he amended, knowing that the mercenary would push his luck as far as possible when it came to getting out of the infirmary and back to his own room.

"Are ya gonna get it out, or are ya gonna stand there?" Kaylee asked him. He looked up to find that in the short time since she'd attacked him the young woman had, with Zoe's help, gotten a transfusion line running from her arm to Jayne's, and now sat with his head in her lap, one hand gently caressing the side of his face. Meeting her cold look, he realized that it was going to take a lot of strawberries for her to accept his apologies when this was over.

"Of course I'm going to take it out," he countered, trying to control the shake in his voice. He was working in a very tight space between two very important organs inside of what was, despite the fact that Kaylee's blood had started to even out his vital signs a little, a very unstable patient. _Surrounded by three very mentally unstable people,_ he added to himself.

"Not crazy," River chastised him as she entered the room, moving to stand by Zoe so she could watch. "Vinegar is an unattractive cologne."

"_Meimei_-"

"The walls will whisper later," his sister said sweetly, beaming at him. He gaped at her for a second, then closed his mouth and went back to work.


	8. Decisions, Decisions

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I realize that some readers were less than pleased with my characterization of Simon in the last chapter. While I can appreciate the points made in their reviews and I respect their opinions about how Simon ought to be characterized, I have written his character in this story in concordance with how I view him, not how I think the reader would necessarily want him to appear. This is my credo in all of my works. Hopefully there are some readers out there who either like the way I've written Simon or can live with it, but in either case, the story is what it is. I hope you will all read on, gather some level of enjoyment from the tale, and feel free to comment constructively on it.

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An hour later, it was done. The bullet had been dropped with absolutely no aplomb in the garbage, Simon had stitched his way back out of Jayne's chest, and he was stripping off his gloves on his way out of the infirmary when a firm hand gripped the back of his neck painfully, directing him towards the cargo bay. "What do you think you are doing?" he squawked.

"You're gonna help clean up," Mal informed him, a false cheer in his voice. "I figure the mess on my mule trailer would be a gorram sight less if you'd a kept better pressure on outside instead of makin' Zoe tell ya how to do your job, so you get to lend a hand with the scrubbin'."

"I did not neglect my duties as a physician," Simon protested. _He's still alive, after all._

"Then why did you look so guilty out there? Oh, I know, it's cause it's like Kaylee said and you was disappointed about maybe never gettin' to ask Jayne what his favorite color is, right? I saw that look, Tam. If we hadn't been watchin', you would a gladly let him die."

He wanted to argue. He really did. But he couldn't, because every word of it was true. There was no one on board Serenity with whom he couldn't hold a semi-civil conversation, with the exception being the man he'd just pulled his hands out of. Nevertheless, Kaylee had been right that he'd never made an effort to know any of them at all, even when they had shown interest in him. _River _had been more polite than he had, and she didn't make sense half the time. He could have a polite discussion, but that didn't mean he ever said anything of value. On top of that, his hatred of the mercenary ran deeper than he liked to let himself admit, possibly because he'd always known that Jayne had had his eyes-and his heart-set on Kaylee long before Simon ever showed up, and was therefore competition. When he had told Jayne that he was always safe on the operating table, he'd meant it, and he had always intended to fulfill that promise. Today, though, the part of him that wanted Kaylee for himself had taken over and made him break that promise, and with it a much greater one that he had made long ago. He loathed himself for breaking that promise, even if he did bear no love toward the mercenary. _At least Kaylee has an extremely clear choice,_ he thought acidly. _Culture and breeding or crudity and boorishness._

"So," Mal continued, releasing him as they entered the cargo bay. "We gonna do this the easy way, or am I gonna have to borrow Jayne's punching bag later?"

_What...? _The options were contradictory until Simon realized that, to Mal, the easy way of dealing with him would probably be beating him to a bloody pulp. Clearing his throat nervously at the gleam in the captain's stare, he slunk away, calling back over his shoulder. "I'll get the hose."

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"Kaylee."

The mechanic looked up as her name sounded in Zoe's voice, the first thing either of them had said since Mal had followed Simon out of the room. She found the first mate focused on strapping bandages securely over the stitches marching hideously across Jayne's chest. Despite the fact that the taller woman wasn't looking at her, though, there had clearly been a question in her voice. "Yeah, Zoe?"

"Somethin' goin' on between you and Simon?" It had been impossible to miss the fierce protectiveness in the younger woman's tone when she'd been lecturing the doctor about how she would more or less castrate him if anything went wrong with Jayne's surgery. It was understandable that Kaylee would be upset about the surgeon's obvious lack of interest in his patient, but her reaction had been so uncharacteristically violent that it had made Zoe wonder if there wasn't something a bit more than feelings of friendship going through her mind when she considered the man on the table. If nothing else, Kaylee's actions towards the doctor certainly hadn't been anything like the swooning she'd been displaying for him since the day he first came aboard, and that in itself was interesting even if Jayne didn't really figure in at all.

Kaylee considered the question, turning her gaze back to the head in her lap as she did. _My poor _baobei. _I hate the way he treats you. _She hated the way Simon treated her most of the time, too, now that she stopped to think about it. She adored River, loved the girl like she was her own sister, but the elder Tam was downright obsessive about his sister, sparing no time for anything else-including love. Their few hours together tended to leave Kaylee feeling like a bit of an idiot, particularly when he would drop a name that she was clearly supposed to recognize as someone important and then sigh when she had to ask who this Mo-Nay fella was anyway. "Ain't nothin' goin' on between me an' Simon," she answered with an air of finality. "Not a single thing." As she spoke her decision, a piece of her that had been dislodged of late slipped back into place. Suddenly feeling like herself again, she smiled slightly and ran her fingers along Jayne's jawline, marveling at how unexpectedly soft his skin was.

Catching the movement, and the look in the mechanic's eyes as she performed it, Zoe stared for a long moment. When Kaylee glanced up and met her gaze, she was certain that what she was seeing was real-as real, at least, as she and Wash were. "Well. You told him yet?"

"No. But I aim to just as soon as he wakes up."

"...I meant Simon."

"Oh." Her guffaw sounded so much like Jayne's that the standing woman had to look to make sure he hadn't made the noise himself. "Simon can just figure it out. I'm sick of him treatin' me like some toy he can just put on a shelf and ignore when he's got better things to do. Sides, I never really...well, he and Jayne are two very different people. I wasn't sure for a while, but I done figured out which one I prefer. And it ain't Simon." She paused, watching as the last piece of tape went into place. "Hey Zoe?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think...well, I mean...Zoe, Simon was just gonna..." Fresh tears started down her cheeks, wetting the already red and chaffed tracks there. "He woulda just let him die, ya know? That...that ain't right for no doctor to do, ain't right for no person, let alone a doctor. How...how could he a done that?" Her arms tightened slightly around the figure she held.

"I don't know, Kaylee. I just don't know. I ain't never pretended to understand them Core-folk. River's all right, and Inara too, but Simon...well, he's mighty useful from time to time, but he bears watchin'. Especially after today." Her eyes narrowed, remembering the look on his face as they'd knelt in the dirt. _Woulda let him die right there, and again once we was back. That ain't right. _Shaking her head, she gestured to Kaylee's arm, wanting to take the transfusion line out of her and start running plasma. The mechanic was beginning to look a little pale, and the last thing they needed was for her to faint from being too generous.

"Just a little more?" Kaylee begged, extending her arm disappointedly when the answer was a firm no. Only when there was plasma going did she speak again. "You gotta help me."

Zoe spun around, afraid she'd suddenly gone weak and was about to fall off the bed or something. "What's wrong?"

"Mal'll toss him out the airlock when he finds out." Her voice held real fear. "I don't want to hurt nobody, Zoe, but I ain't lettin' Mal do that to him."

She was confused until she realized that Kaylee had no idea how exactly the man cradled in her arms had been injured. "I don't think you gotta worry about that," she replied, leaning back against the counter. "Mal ain't gonna forget today any time soon, even if I gotta keep remindin' him of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Jayne saved Mal's life this morning." She inclined her head towards the trash can by her feet. "That bullet would have been in the back of the captain's head if Jayne hadn't seen it comin' and stepped in front of it."

"...You serious?" Her eyes were platters, her lower lip trembling.

"Yes. Job had gone fine, we were headin' back, and he got all itchy, kept sayin' somethin' was up. Mal didn't believe him, told him to walk backwards and watch our backs if he was so sure it was gonna go south. Jayne did, and that's the only reason he saw that sniper what had the captain straight in his sights. All I know is that the captain says Jayne knocked him to the ground right as the first shot went off, and he didn't get back up the whole time we was fightin'. There ain't no other explanation for all that, least not one I can figure out."

"So he really is a gorram hero," she whispered.

Zoe grinned mirthlessly. "Think he has been this whole time, even if he didn't mean to be. We was just too blind to see it. 'Cept you, Kaylee. You're the only one who really saw him, I think, before now." She shivered. "Almost became the only one who ever did."

"He'll be fine," the mechanic assured her, her confidence in the statement clear in her tone. "I meant what I told Simon earlier. He ain't no quitter. He ain't gonna give up, I know it." Almost as if he heard her, Jayne shifted in her arms, moaning slightly. "We got another smoother? I think the last one's wearin' off, he's gettin' kinda pale." She bit at her lip until the painkiller was administered and he went still again.

"Think maybe we ought to let him rest a while, honey," Zoe said quietly after a little while of watching Kaylee watch Jayne. The longer she saw the two of them together like this, the more and more it made sense to her, and she couldn't help but recognize the look on the mechanic's face as the same one Wash wore whenever she was so much as nicked. "How about some breakfast? You must be hungry."

Kaylee placed his head on the pillow and hopped down reluctantly, pulling the blanket up to his chin before moving towards the door. "I don't want him to wake up alone," she worried, turning back.

"Honey, we just gave him a good dose of smoothers. He's gonna be out for a while, I promise. Sides that, he won't be too pleased if the first thing he hears is your stomach rumblin'."

"All right," Kaylee agreed. "One second." She returned to his side just long enough to drop a light kiss on his forehead. "Sweet dreams, _baobei."_


	9. Rumble, Tumble and Talk

Simon threw the hose to the floor, feeling like a pig. He hated sweating, hated manual labor, particularly of this type, hated everything that had anything to do with the man laying in his infirmary. _He probably took that bullet just to inconvenience me. Either that or pulling some absurdly stupid trick, trying to be a hero._ He scrubbed half-heartedly, ignoring the look Mal shot him from a few feet away, where he too was on his hands and knees.

"Not trying," River announced from the catwalk above them, swinging her feet. Simon wasn't sure if she meant he wasn't trying to clean the blood up or that Jayne hadn't been trying to be a hero. He didn't really care, either, but his sister was determined to get her point across. "Neither one of you is trying."

"Hey, I'm scrubbin' pretty hard down here," Mal informed her, peering upward. "It's gonna be a while before Jayne can tidy up the place like normal, and I don't figure he'd much appreciate it if I asked him to clean up his own blood. Your brother, on the other hand, appears to be in the top three percent of lollygaggin', which is somethin' I'm less than pleased to find out about."

"I'm a surgeon, damn it, I don't wash floors!" Simon flung back. Before he could scramble out of the way, Mal had pinned him on his back and was crouched over him with a lethal glare on his face.

"Yeah, well, you ain't too much of a surgeon, judgin' from what I saw today. Ain't no excuse in the Verse for the little trick you tried to pull earlier. I been watchin' that man lyin' in there awful hard since the moment he set foot on my ship,"-_and especially recently, _he thought but didn't say-"and I'll be damned if he hasn't been provin' himself a hell of an asset to this crew, even if I have been slow to see it. He's even friendly from time to time. You, on the other hand, have been a complete _hun dan,_ not just to him but to Kaylee, and that stops right now. _Dong ma_?"

"Are you telling me that you are defending him simply because he's cut back on cursing recently and because he happened to get hurt on this job? You're putting a _gun jockey,_ who I would point out can easily be replaced in just about any major port with another equally crass specimen, before a highly qualified surgeon just because _he_ happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time? That's asinine!" he spat.

Looking back on it later, Simon would realize that he should have seen what was coming. Mal's face had been growing steadily more perturbed as he spoke, and calling the man's judgment into question was an unintelligent move under the best of circumstances. Despite knowing this, he was completely unprepared for the fist that connected with his nose, or for the blows that rained down after that. He had just managed to get one arm up to cover his face when the attack suddenly ceased, and he heard Shepherd Book yelling through the pounding in his head.

"Captain, what are you doing?" the priest called, rushing down off the catwalk when he observed the beating taking place below him. Pulling Mal off of Simon and pushing him away, he glanced back and forth between the two of them in utter disbelief. "I have to say," he said when he saw that no attempt would be made by either party to resume the fight, "that the doctor is probably the last person I ever expected to have to pull you off of." Observing that Mal was shaking slightly and glaring at the bruised and bloodied doctor, he inquired what the problem was.

"The doctor-" he growled the word sarcastically "-has decided that he's better than everyone else on this ship. He made that real clear twice today already by bein' a mighty poor physician, and then decided it would be a good idea to point out that he don't agree with my ideas about the reliability of certain members of my crew."

"I see. And you, doctor?" _I swear, you can all be such children. There is a real curse associated with being the oldest person on this ship._

"All I said," he replied slowly, pushing himself into a sitting position and dabbing carefully at his bloody nose with a sleeve, "was that the captain appears to be unable to distinguish quantity from quality."

"Quantity and quality?" Book repeated, raising an eyebrow. Simon opened his mouth to clarify, but was stopped cold by the warning snarl Mal emitted.

"Yes. Well. In either case, he is the captain, so it seems his decisions will stand." _Whether they're correct or not._

"You're damn straight they will," the captain muttered.

"Well," Book temporized, "if that's the case, then I suppose there is no point in fighting over whatever decision that may be, now is there?"

"Nope. I think my point's been made," Mal acquiesced, standing.

"Quite," Simon agreed, rising much more unsteadily but refusing to acknowledge the hand Book extended to help him. "If you'll both excuse me, I'll just go tend to my face." He turned towards the infirmary, stopping when the captain's voice spoke his name, a threat clearly nestled between the syllables.

"Simon."

"Yes?"

"You keep your hands off my mercenary. I don't want you touchin' him unless Zoe or I tell you to. I find out you done otherwise..." he left it open ended, more than happy to let Simon tack on whatever ghastly punishment he liked.

"Trust me, I wouldn't go near him unless you ordered me to." _Maybe not even then._ Without another word, he stomped away, swiping uselessly at his swelling face.

Mal glared after him, then ground his teeth as he turned to find Book taking in the bloody water on the floor and trailer with an amazed look on his face. _This ain't gonna be fun. Got lucky in that Kaylee somehow stumbled in on us in the infirmary, but Book's gotta be told, too._ Thinking of his mechanic, he wondered if Zoe had mentioned the part of the day where Jayne had caught that gorram bullet that had been meant for him.

"Good Lord, who's been hurt?" the Shepherd asked, clearly concerned.

"You shoulda seen this place before we cleaned up some," Mal commented, trying to sound breezy about it. When the preacher just stared at him, he sighed. "It was Jayne."

"Is he all right?"

"Dunno, really. Simon got the bullet out, but it ain't good. I guess we'll know in a day or so." He cringed internally at how unattached his voice came out. _Do I always sound like that when I talk about him?_

"The job went badly, then?"

"Well, yes and no..." He proceeded to give Book the highlights of the morning, going into detail only about the fact that Jayne had purposefully blocked a shot from hitting it's target. "I didn't even see it comin'. Guessin' on where it hit him, the sniper was probably aimin' for my head."

"You said that Simon got it out, yes?" He was still worried, but so long as the mercenary would recover he would try not to be annoyingly concerned. It wouldn't do any good for him to hang around the infirmary all day getting in the way, even though he was tempted to do so.

"Yeah." Mal sneered. "Not that he wanted to," he went on, explaining the doctor's reluctance to perform his duties properly and that he was apparently letting personal feelings get in the way.

"I hate to condemn him for something I didn't see, but..." Book trailed off, glancing in the direction that Mal's victim had disappeared in. "Has anyone told Kaylee yet? She'll take this hard."

"She seemed to be handlin' it fine. Walked in right after Zoe realized Simon didn't have any blood set up and announced that she and Jayne have the same blood type." He shrugged. "The creepifyin' part was when she got upset at the doc for tellin' her it wasn't gonna do any good. She pushed him away from the table and gave him a lecture that put shivers down my spine, and it wasn't even me she was threatenin'. Ain't never seen her act like that before."

"Hmm..." Book couldn't hide his smile as Mal continued to relate what had occurred in the infirmary, especially when he got to the part about the mechanic sitting with Jayne's head in her lap like it was the most natural thing in the Verse.

"Don't know what's gotten into her," the captain wondered aloud.

"Oh, I imagine she's just come to a realization, that's all."

"Realization a what?" _What do you know that I don't, preacher?_

"I have suspected for some time now that Jayne has feelings for Kaylee that go a bit farther than friendship. Mind you, he's very careful not to show it, but he treats her differently than any other woman I've ever seen him around. Now, having come on board at the same time as Simon and River, I can't say whether or not Kaylee's ever thought of Jayne...romantically...since she attached herself to the doctor quite quickly, but I do know that the two of them spend a fair amount of hours together as friends. She's voiced to me more than once that he's always willing to help her with the engine, particularly when she's dealing with heavy parts, and I've been invited to drink with them a time or two. I've always declined, but it wouldn't surprise me if somewhere in the midst of all that work and conversation Kaylee found out that Jayne is a lot more than he appears to be to the glancing eye. Coupled with the less than thrilled way Simon has reacted to her advances, the shock of seeing her close friend badly wounded may well have sparked some sort of amorous feelings within her."

"Amo-what feelings?"

"Amorous." When the captain still look confused, he clarified. "Love. Romantic love."

Mal shifted uncomfortably. "Not sure I'm real comfortable with that idea," he muttered. "Kaylee and Jayne...well, it just seems awful odd. I ain't never figured her to be one to go all lovey-dovey over someone like him."

Book smiled gently. "You also never figured Jayne would take a bullet for you."

"Well, now, I..." He paused, stymied. "Yeah, I reckon you got that right. But I ain't...well..." His discomfort was now palpable. "I reckon I ain't never really given Jayne the credit he was due," he admitted finally. "Somethin' I gotta make up for now."

"Try to think of it positively." When Mal stared, the preacher clapped him on the shoulder. "At least you'll have the opportunity to do just that." He paused to let it sink in, then continued. "On that note, why don't we get some breakfast?"

"Maybe swing by the infirmary on the way."

"Fine by me, captain. Fine by me."


	10. Breakfast Bombshell

"Zoe, maybe I ought ta go back downstairs. I ain't really that hungry," Kaylee tried as she was pushed towards the table.

Rustling around in the cupboards, Zoe didn't turn as she responded. "You just sit down. I'll get somethin' going in just a minute, and as soon as you've had breakfast we'll give him another check. Don't worry, Kaylee, he's not goin' anywhere. I know as well as you do how stubborn he is. He'll be just fine for a half hour." _Wish we had some real food,_ she lamented. _Poor girl's so pale. Been a hell of a day for her already. Hell of a day for all of us, and it ain't even really breakfast time yet._ With a sigh, she began to prepare protein mush, figuring that with a little sugar it might even be semi-edible.

Knowing Zoe wasn't going to let her go back to Jayne without having eaten something, Kaylee sat down and stared at the table, looking up only when Wash came through the doorway and gave her a little wave. She tried to smile, but she knew it had come out all wrong from the strange look the pilot shot back as he moved to step up behind his wife.

"Mornin', love," he chirped brightly, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"It is mornin'," Zoe agreed, pausing in her cooking long enough to give him a kiss. "Had ourselves some excitement already today." _Ain't no point in not comin' right out with it, everyone'll know soon enough._

"Delicious tales of derring-do to be told? I hope we at least got paid." As he spoke Wash took his own seat, pausing only long enough to remove a plastic dinosaur from his pocket before sitting. "Although I'd guess we didn't from the look on your face, Kaylee," he teased.

"Ain't the money," she answered lamely, not looking up at him.

"She's upset about the excitement. You leave that girl alone, husband, and let me tell ya what all happened while you were still in bed."

"My cold, lonely, miserable bed," the blond clarified. "I hardly slept a wink without you, lamby-toes."

Zoe was about to reply when Inara's greeting stopped her. The Companion sat across from Kaylee, smiling, and was disturbed by the miserable glance that was her only response. _Damn you, Simon Tam. I sincerely hope you haven't gone and said something foolish again. I swear, sometimes I wonder why she keeps going after you._ "Where is Mal?" she asked, partially to distract herself from the urge to smack the idiot doctor who had clearly hurt Kaylee's feelings again and partially because she remembered they had been out on a job last night. Zoe was back, so obviously they were done, but Mal wasn't present in the dining room for some reason. "I hope that the job went well?"

"It did and it didn't. More didn't," Zoe replied, carrying a steaming pot of brownish muck to the table and handing around bowls. "Captain's fine, though. I believe he and Simon are cleanin' up the cargo bay some."

"Mal and..._Simon_?" Inara repeated, refusing a bowl. She had eaten a fresh peach in the privacy of her shuttle rather than subject herself to what she knew would be a protein-laden repast, and smelling the ersatz oatmeal the other three were dishing out she was once more grateful that she could always afford to have real food if she wanted it.

"Isn't it normally Jayne's job to clean up down there?" Wash frowned, wincing as he shoved a spoonful of tasteless texture into his mouth.

"Normally, but he's a bit out of service for much of that. Like I said, job was more bad than good. Could a been a lot worse, if he hadn't done what he did." She could feel two pairs of eyes boring into her head, but gorramit, she was hungry. They were just going to have to wait a minute until she'd had a bite or two.

"Well, wife? What'd who do to make what better?"

"Hold on." _I got two bites in. Guess that's better than none. Shoulda known I was gonna have to tell the story before I could eat in peace._ "We'd wrapped up the deal, were walkin' away when one of them decided the captain would look better with a hole in the back of his head." She heard a horrified feminine gasp, but didn't stop. "Jayne saw the fella fixin' to pull the trigger, pushed the captain out of the way." She knew she was leaving a lot out, but they didn't need gory details, at least not in front of Kaylee. As for Simon's less than exemplary performance...it didn't really seem like it was her place to let that information out. That was a call she'd let Mal make.

"So...what, Mal gave him the day off as thanks or something?" Wash sounded skeptical.

"No. Gave him the day off cause Jayne caught the bullet for him." Another sharp intake of breath from the Companion interrupted her. "Simon figures he'll probably be all right." She tried to keep her voice from sounding tight over the last part, but failed to cover up her worry.

"Probably?"

"Pretty nasty wound. Hit him in the chest, then he was layin' out in the dirt for fifteen, twenty minutes before we could finish the fight and get the mule out to him."

"That's horrible," Inara whispered. "You're certain he'll be fine?"

"A course he will be," Kaylee almost snapped. "Wish people'd quit actin' like he ain't gonna be okay," she added, her voice dropping as shame flooded her face for speaking so harshly, and to Inara of all people. Next to the mercenary, the cultured woman was her closest friend on the ship; normally she wouldn't have dreamed of answering her so rudely. _Been an awful strange mornin', _she allowed herself. "Sorry, 'Nara, I didn't mean to be so mean."

"It's all right, _meimei_," Inara replied, reaching across the table for her hands. As much as it bothered her that the mechanic spent time alone with Jayne-she had never seen evidence of much good breeding in the man, and could just imagine what kind of thoughts he might have about the girl-she knew that Kaylee saw something in him that she didn't. _That I didn't before, at least,_ she conceded as Zoe's words sank in. _If he saved Mal's life, though..._ "I know it's a bit shocking."

"Yeah. Who'd have guessed Jayne could do something decent?" Wash joked, freezing when Kaylee and his wife both leveled certifiable Looks at him. "Did I say something wrong?" he asked nervously.

The mechanic just frowned at him and pulled her hands away from Inara's. Standing, she looked over at Zoe. "I'm goin' back downstairs," she told her.

The second in command pursed her lips, but didn't argue. "At least take the bowl with ya. Eat somethin' while you're down there." When Kaylee had left, carrying her breakfast, she shot Wash another glare.

"I was only joking, wife! I like him as much as anyone else here, after all."

"Yeah, well, until I had a little wake up this mornin', none of us sittin' here seemed to like him very much," Zoe pointed out. "When was the last time either of you gave him a compliment or thanked him for doin' somethin'?"

"I always figured it was safer to avoid addressing Jayne directly," Wash put forth. "I like my face in one piece."

Inara was equally defensive. "Really, Zoe, he isn't exactly the most approachable person. Besides, I don't know that he's ever done anything I should have thanked him for."

"How about all the times the captain and I have come back alive? Ya coulda thanked him for any one of those. I ain't sayin' that the rest of us ain't been just as bad about it, but lookin' back, can either of you honestly say that you can think of a time when Jayne was given the recognition he deserves for what he does around here?"

"What _does _he do?"

"Covers our asses, that's what," she growled. "And I don't know about you, but I ain't taken out the garbage or cleaned the cargo bay since he came on board. Man's made some of our best meals, too. Even manages to make protein edible from time to time."

"He's also exceedingly crude and ill-tempered," Inara pointed out. "Some of the things I've heard come out of his mouth aren't fit to be thought, let alone spoken."

"That don't mean he don't deserve bein' shown appreciation for the good things he does," Zoe snapped back. "An' maybe you don't notice much sittin' up there in your shuttle, Inara, but he does his fair share of good around here. Just cause we ain't bothered to notice it don't mean he ain't been doin' it."

"I just fail to see-"

"You fail to see a whole lot. You fail to see what he does for us. You fail to see Mal pinin' over ya. And if I ain't mistaken, you're failin' right now to see why Kaylee has gone back to the infirmary to sit with him. Would you rather he'd a died? Would you rather Mal gave up on ya and went after someone else? Would you rather Kaylee keep goin' after that useless ruttin' doctor who don't do nothin' but push her away and try to let crew bleed out in the dirt?" When Inara just stared at her, shocked to silence by her tirade, she repeated herself. "Well, would ya?"

"I-of course I don't want..." She trailed off, swallowing heavily. _Of course I don't want any of those things,_ she thought. _Mal is...pining after me? Did she mean that?_

"Wait a minute, wife," Wash interjected. "What do you mean about Simon?"

"What?" She spun on him.

"About Simon letting crew bleed out in the dirt. What did you mean?"

_Gorram it. Now I've gone and done it._ She hadn't meant to let that out, but out it was. "The doctor's just a bit too willin' to let personal feelings get in the way of doing his job sometimes, that's all," she replied lamely. "That ain't the point, though. The point is, Jayne saved Mal's life out there today, and the two of you sit here acting like that ain't nothin'. Like he ain't nothin' to you. But I know for a fact that both of you-all a us, in fact-owe our lives at least once over to him. And so far as I can remember ain't no one ever thanked him for that."

Wash reflected quietly for a moment. "I guess you're right," he said finally. "We do. And we never have. Huh. Guess I just figured he'd be offended or something."

"Well, you're gonna _start _thankin' him when he's done somethin' to deserve it. _Dong ma?" _Deciding from the look on her face that a refusal would result in a very long period of forced celibacy, he nodded rigorously.

Inara looked up from studying the grain of the table. "I think I'll just go check on Kaylee," she whispered. What she really wanted to do was rush to the cargo bay and demand that Mal tell her whether or not he really did care about her, as Zoe had said, but propriety held her back. Such an action would be undignified at best. At worst, it would frighten and confuse him, possibly driving him away from her forever. _It's practically a miracle that I haven't managed that already._

"You do that," Zoe huffed, sitting back down and pulling her breakfast, now cooled into a near-solid, towards her. As the Companion left the room, she dug her spoon determinedly into the bowl, grimacing as she chewed the gummy mush.

Wash slid over until he was across from her and leaned forward. "Zoe?"

"What is it?"

"...Why _did _Kaylee act all funny and then go back downstairs, anyway?"

Throwing her head back in exasperation, she sighed and addressed the ceiling. "Why is it that men ain't never able to see what's straight in front of them?"


	11. Open Book

"Gorram it, did Zoe leave him down here alone?" Mal said, striding into the infirmary with Book on his heels. When Kaylee whirled on him, glaring at the volume of his voice, he stopped in his tracks. "Oh. I reckon she didn't."

"Made me leave for a little while. Wanted me to eat somethin'." She went back to stroking the hand on the bed next to her as she spoke. "Wasn't hungry, so I came back down. Didn't want him to wake up all alone, ya know?"

Book couldn't help but smile. _Well, Jayne's going to get one hell of a surprise when he wakes up. Maybe after this people will take him a bit more seriously. Mal already seems to, at least, _he noted as the captain got close enough to study Jayne's facial expression before moving away restlessly, his own visage heavy with thought. "How is he, Kaylee?" the preacher asked, both to assuage his own curiosity and concern and to voice the question Mal clearly wanted to have answered.

"Breathin' a little better than before," she answered. "Still awful pale, though." A frown twisted her mouth at that.

"Needs blood," the captain muttered, pacing. "Wish we had some the right type. Plasma's all right for a while, but it ain't the same thing."

"I can give him more," Kaylee immediately volunteered, pausing from hitching herself onto the bed with painful care in order to look up expectantly.

"No," Mal vetoed. "Can't afford to have both of you down. Still...ain't there some blood that anyone can take? Wonder if any of us has got that."

"O negative," Book informed him as he moved to lend Kaylee a hand up and then peered down, examining the unconscious mercenary. "What _is_ his blood type?"

"B negative," the mechanic responded, gently pushing the loose end of a piece of medical tape back into place where the plasma needle vanished under skin drained of color. "Same as mine. We laughed some when we figured that out. Thought it was funny we was both rare like that." She was silent for a moment. "Ain't so funny now," she whispered.

"Just be glad you were here when he needed it," Book tried to console her.

"Wish I could give him more. Ain't there nothin' better than plasma on board?"

"Don't think so," Mal answered. "Don't know everyone else's type, but I heard Simon say once that I'm AB-somethin', so I don't think that would work. Shepherd?"

He shook his head. "I won't be of any use either, I'm afraid. We may be able to find some in town," he suggested.

"Yeah. I'll have Wash move us back towards civilization, now that the job's done."

"We got the money, didn't we captain?" Kaylee asked. "I mean, how're we gonna buy what he needs if we didn't get paid?"

"I've got the money," Mal assured her. "You just stay here and keep him with us 'til we get what he needs." With a final, troubled glance towards his wounded mercenary, he left, searching for the ship's pilot.

When he was gone, Book studied the young woman for a long minute, eventually noting that there were silent tears slipping down her cheeks. "Are you all right?"

She laughed shortly, shaking her head slowly. "Never thought I could be so blind as I been," she told him. "Ain't gonna be blind no more. Ain't gonna let another day go by without tellin' him I love him." The glance she shot him dared him to challenge her words, or her right to say them.

"No, I don't suppose you will. But Kaylee?"

"Hmm?"

"Break it to him gently. It's going to be a bit of a shock to have everything he's wanted for the last two years fall into his lap with no warning."

"_Two years? _You sayin' he's wanted me that long, and he ain't never said nothin'? That's...that's practically as long as he's been on Serenity!"

"All I know is what he told me," he replied quietly. _If I remember correctly, he referred to your first conversation together as a "shock n' awe kind a experience." _

"An' what was that?"

"Well...I know he's been rather miserable watching you chase after Simon. And that he spends several hours in heavy physical activity every time he thinks that the doctor has been less than kind to you, probably to keep himself from punching the man out. He might treat you like you're his little sister, Kaylee, but that's only because he respects you too much to treat you like a sex object."

"...I've been awful to him, ain't I?" she asked, her eyes wide. "How did I not see all a that?"

"You haven't done anything wrong, Kaylee. You just didn't know. He doesn't hold that against you."

"You sure about that? That he ain't mad with me?"

"Trust me, Kaylee," Book said with a broad smile, patting her shoulder gently. "I don't think he could ever be truly mad at you."

"Good," she whispered giddily, squeezing the silent Jayne with the utmost delicacy. "_Good._"


	12. Impromptu Rendezvous

Lost in his own thoughts as he walked away from the infirmary, Mal didn't see Inara coming down the hallway until she threw herself at him. He caught her awkwardly, startled out of his reverie. "What in the gorram hell-"

"Oh, Mal," she sighed, grabbing him tightly. "I was so worried."

Confused by the embrace but not willing to waste the opportunity, however brief it might be, to hold her, he squeezed back. "Worried?" _How is it she always smells so good? Like peaches or somethin'._ "'Bout what?"

"About you. Zoe...Zoe told us what happened this morning."

"Oh. Then shouldn't you be more worried about Jayne?" he asked, scratching his head.

She just looked at him for a moment before shaking her head. "Of course I am. I was on my way to the infirmary, actually, but...Mal, you could have died. If he hadn't...you would be..." She was suddenly on the verge of sobbing, and found herself completely unable to do anything about the fact.

He pursed his lips tightly, holding her shoulders as they shook. "I'm well aware of that fact," he said. "And it ain't gonna go unrewarded, not by any stretch of the imagination. Speakin' a which, I'd like to see some attitudes around here change."

"I know. Zoe pointed out quite clearly how unappreciative we've all been, and I...I admit that I am as guilty as anyone of not acknowledging his value to this ship. I just...didn't realize his importance until I heard that you...that he had..." Her lower lip trembled, and she couldn't finish the sentence without blubbering.

"'Nara," he said helplessly, hating to see her in such a state but not certain what he could do to alleviate her obvious emotional distress. "Hell, woman, I don't know what to do here," he muttered. "You're gonna get me all wet."

"Well I'm sorry," she snapped, pulling back as anger flared at his callous response to her tears. "I thought maybe you would understand why I was upset, but evidently I was wrong." She tried to storm past him, but was stopped by his hand gripping her arm carefully. "Unhand me, please," she ordered.

"Hold on. Look, Inara, I...I know why you're upset, all right? I ain't too happy about it myself. He's about the last person I figured would ever jump between me and a bullet. But he did, and now he's lyin' in there half-dead and Kaylee's mooning over him like Simon ain't never entered her vision. You gettin' all teary just adds to the craziness, and I've had about enough of that for one day. So I ain't tryin' to be all ungentleman-like, I'm just...tired. And damn confused as to why I ain't got a hole in the back of my head. And I ain't sure, but I think I might be feelin' a bit guilty, too, for the way I acted out there this morning. If Zoe hadn't been there..." He looked away, eyes troubled as he remembered. _Worthless? He ain't worthless. I know that, hell I knew it when I said it, every time I said it. If he was worthless I never woulda let him set foot on this ship, and I sure as hell wouldn't a let him stay. But I didn't even try to find out if he was all right before I was yellin' at him. Just kicked at him. _"Aw, hell, 'Nara." _I shouldn't be sayin' this to you. Shouldn't be sayin' it to anybody._

"Mal," she breathed his name. "What happened? Something is bothering you about this, I can tell. Tell me what it is, please. Let me help."

"Not here," he replied, his voice dropping to match her volume. "Someplace quieter. I don't want the wrong ears to hear."

"My shuttle, then," she said without thinking. _Wait...Did I just invite __Malcolm Reynolds__ to come to my shuttle for a discussion about feelings?_ _I believe...I believe that I did._ She blinked rapidly, taken aback by her own boldness, as she waited for his answer.

"Your-" _The shuttle? Don't rightly know that you've ever actually invited me up there before now..._ "All right. Let me just tell Wash to get us back to town, and I'll...I'll meet you?"

"Of course. I'll just check in on Kaylee while you speak to Wash." He turned away with an uncertain nod, but now her hand held him back. "Mal? One last thing." She reached up to kiss his cheek, then smiled and walked off towards the infirmary, leaving the captain standing in the hall with his mouth agape. Realizing finally that anyone could come along and see him like this, he scrubbed roughly at his face, trying to erase any lipstick that might have marked him. _Damn women and their makeup._ Heading in the opposite direction, though, he could help but smirk over the smooch. _Heh. Almost wish I'd a left it there, like some sorta brand. Property of Inara._ He shook his head. _Nah. Too good to be true._


	13. Not Proper, Just Right

Inara knocked quietly on the frame of the infirmary door, hesitant to interrupt the low conversation Book and Kaylee were having. When they ceased speaking, she poked her head around the corner. "May I come in?"

"Of course," the Shepherd agreed, stepping back to give her room to enter. "I was actually on my way out, now that I see there's no danger of Jayne being left unattended." He turned back to the mechanic briefly. "Remember what I said, Kaylee. It's going to be quite a shock for him." Giving the Companion a secret smile that she didn't quite understand, he headed towards the kitchen.

"How are you, _meimei?" _Inara asked, leaning against the wall. The younger woman had Jayne's head in her lap-_I can just imagine the crude joke he'd make right now-_and was worrying her lower lip with her teeth as she stared down at him.

"I'm all right, I guess." Her gaze snapped up. "What's your blood type?" she demanded unexpectedly.

"My..." _Why does she want to know that? _"I'm a universal recipient."

The woman on the table sighed. "Ain't the right type."

"Kaylee..." _You look so sad, honey. After that little speech you gave at the table I thought you would be in a better mood. You seemed so certain of yourself just a little while ago._

"He's just so pale, 'Nara, and I can't do nothin' for it," she burst out. "Captain won't let me give him any more." She cupped his face with her palm, searching for some hint of healthy color and sighing when she failed to find it.

Turning her attention to Jayne, Inara flinched. Kaylee was right; he was wan, far more so than she would have believed it was possible for him to get. The coloring she had always taken to be a tan had completely fled, leaving him nearly as white as the sheet he lay on. For the first time since she'd laid eyes on him, the man looked fragile, and the Companion found herself gulping. _It would have been Mal laying there, looking like that. Looking..._the only words that came to her mind were 'deathly pale,' and she grimaced at her own morbidity. "I'm sure he'll pull through," she tried, but her training abandoned her and the words came out flat. She couldn't make herself believe that, not when even the machinery monitoring him sounded subdued and hopeless in its beeping.

"He can't die. I haven't...I never..." she trailed off.

"Never what?"

"I gotta tell him I love him before he just...he's gotta know. Can't let him die thinkin' no one cares, 'Nara. Thinkin'...thinkin' I don't care."

"You..." she shook her head, trying to make sense of what she'd just heard. "You love him? Kaylee, _meimei_, I'm afraid I'm confused. Where is this coming from?"

"Oh, it's been there all along!" she cried back. "Dunno why I've been so stupid. So much alike..." Her index finger gently ran along one of his eyebrows, her palm caressing his cheek as she chewed her lip harder.

"I know he's your friend, Kaylee, but don't you think this is rather sudden?" The intensity of the conversation drew her a step into the room. _This has clearly been more shocking to her than I thought in the dining room,_ Inara counseled herself. _She's never shown any interest of this sort in Jayne, so why now? This is all so unexpected. _

"It ain't sudden. Been there all along. I just...maybe I was just hidin' it from myself on a cause of everyone's always told me I ought to be with someone proper, and I always figured they meant someone with real nice manners and a steady paycheck. But Jayne...he just feels right." _Why can't I explain this better? _She fretted. _Ain't no one gonna believe I mean what I'm sayin' if I can't even figure out how ta say it right._

"It feels right how?" She took another step and found herself standing next to the bed, entranced by a light in Kaylee's eyes that she was certain had never been there before now. "You've been chasing Simon for so long, I thought that he-"

"No," she interjected. "Not Simon. This...this feels right, 'Nara. _This_ is right. Him, here with me. Restin' on me, like this," she gestured vaguely at the way Jayne's head lay against her, supported by her loving hands. "This feels like heaven to me. Only thing missin' is him bein' awake so's we could enjoy it together."

"Not Simon," the silk-clad figure stated. "But...Jayne?" _Out of all the people in the Verse?_

"Don't give me that look like ya think I'm crazy. You know he saved Mal's life." The mechanic's gaze pierced her straight through. "Don't try to tell me that don't mean nothin' to you, 'Nara. You know what love feels like, real love, love you'd go to the end of the Verse and back for."

She had enough sense to know when she was caught, and she was close enough to Kaylee that she could own up to the fact. "Yes," she admitted helplessly after a minute. "I do."

"Well, now so do I."  
Watching her, the Companion knew it was true. Kaylee was far from being a fool, so she decided that the girl must have seen something in Jayne that she herself had missed along the way._ He saved Mal's life, _she repeated the other woman's words to herself. _Selflessly. He could have been killed in his place. _Regarding his pallor again, she amended the thought. _He could still be killed in his place. And if he is...oh, Kaylee, what a time to fall in love._ "I'm so glad," she whispered finally. "If what you feel for Jayne is like what I feel for Mal...then I cannot help but be happy for you, because being so much in love is a joy granted to very few people. I only hope..." _That he lives long enough for you to tell him,_ she bit back. "I only hope thatit is a joy I will be able to see you bask in for many, many years."

"He'll be fine," she whispered back fiercely, her brown eyes hard with determination again. "He's gotta be."

_You had better live, Jayne, _Inara thought as she spoke a quiet goodbye to Kaylee and headed toward her shuttle and the meeting with Mal. _If you don't, I'm afraid that precious smile of hers we've all come to count on might disappear forever. You saved my happiness today already; please, please find the strength to save hers._


	14. Funny Thing, Love

"Wash!" Mal half-bellowed from down the hall as he approached the dining room.

"I didn't do it!"

"Ain't a question of somethin' you've done, it's a question of what you're gonna do. And that would be gettin' us back to town quick as ya can."

"Can do, captain." He stood up to head to the bridge, then turned back, sharing a glance with Zoe as he did. "How's Jayne?"

"Alive," Mal grunted back. "No tellin' for how long if you don't get us to somewhere we can get the right blood for him."

"No one on the ship has it?"

"Just Kaylee, and she's done more than her share of contributin'. You gonna need her on the engine for takeoff?"

Reflecting on the explanation Zoe had given him about Kaylee's flight to the infirmary a short time before, he shook his head. "I should be able to handle it. If not, I'll call her, but..."

"Ain't no need to go botherin' that girl unless it's absolutely necessary," Zoe filled in for him. "Leave her be down there."

"Right. Well, off I go."

After Wash had vanished, Mal slumped into a chair opposite his second in command. Behind him, Book entered the room and began to fish around for more bowls. "Zoe?" the captain asked quietly.

"Captain?"

"I don't suppose you were plannin' on letting me off the hook for before?" He looked up at her from underneath his eyelashes as he spoke, his thumb worrying at a rough spot on the lip of the table.

"Guess that depends. Can't say as I blame you for bein' suspicious of him-man's a hired gun, after all-but I think ya took it a little far."

Mal shifted uncomfortably as the Shepherd set a reheated dish of mush down and then, sensing that his presence might further stilt an already awkward conversation, took his own breakfast out with him. "Yeah. I reckon I did." They fell silent, Mal's guilt weighing on him heavily as he spooned the bleak sustenance into his mouth.

"Did you have a word with Simon?" Zoe asked eventually.

"Yeah." His hand tightened around his eating utensil as he stabbed it into the viscous swamp he knew was going to play hell on his stomach later. "Bastard had the nerve to suggest that Jayne was as easy to replace as one a Kaylee's engine parts."

She snorted. "I don't imagine Kaylee would agree with him much on that. Can't say I would, either."

"Nope." _Not anymore, at least._

"Where is he, anyway?"

Mal stared at her. "He'd better still be down there in the infirmary," he exclaimed, thinking she was speaking of his mercenary. "I'll kill him myself if he tries walkin' around anytime soon."

"I meant Simon," she informed him. "Ain't seen him since the two of you took a little walk together."

"Oh. I suppose he went to his bunk to clean up his face some."

"...So it was that kind of talk." A smirk slipped across her lips, and was briefly returned by Mal.

"Kinda frightenin' how nice it was to just whale on him," the captain admitted. "Glad Book pulled me off when he did, I mighta done him some real damage otherwise. The way he acts sometimes has been rubbing me wrong for a while."

"Well, maybe now he'll understand that it ain't his job to decide who gets to live and who gets to die." Her eyes darkened. "You looked into the infirmary lately?"

"Just before I came up," he answered, choosing not to mention his run-in with Inara.

"How long do you figure Wash has to get us in to town?"

"Couldn't say. With anyone else, I'd say there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of makin' it in time. With him...well, Kaylee's right. He's got to be the stubbornest person in the Verse."

"Yourself excluded, naturally," Zoe added casually, poking fun at Mal in a semi-serious manner. "And with Kaylee down there with him..."

"Then there's that little issue. Gorram romance goin' on right under my nose."

"You know she didn't have any aims that way until this mornin'."

"I thought she was gonna follow Simon until the end of time. Now I can't quite get over the idea of Kaylee and Jayne, of all people."

"Yep. Me too. Love's funny, though. Never figured I'd go for Wash when I first met him."

"I seem to remember that conversation. 'Man talks to dinosaurs, captain, I don't reckon there's any chance I'd find that attractive.'"

Zoe laughed, recalling the evening she'd told Mal that. "Now I buy the damn things for him. Figure Kaylee'll become a regular customer wherever it is he finds bullets for Vera?"

"Let's just hope Vera don't mind sharin'."

"_Vera'd_ better hope _Kaylee_ don't mind."

"Don't know as he'd be able to choose, if it came down to it. Then again...Book said Jayne's been sweet on Kaylee for a while now." He raised an eyebrow at her, silently asking for her observations on the subject.

"I wondered about that. I mean, how he might react when she tells him."

"Book seems to think he's gonna be pretty pleased."

"Well, he ought to be. Kaylee deserves someone who's finally going to look at her and really see her." She paused to measure Mal's expression with her eyes. "I assume that you ain't plannin' on just throwing him out the airlock the first time you catch 'em kissing?"

"I don't know that I'd want to face the wrath of Kaylee if I did, especially after seein' her blow up at Simon this morning. Couldn't believe that."

"Kaylee, or Simon?"

"Both."

"Just defending her territory, captain. We women can get pretty nasty when there's somethin' out to hurt what we consider to be ours." _I ain't even gonna try to make excuses for our so-called doctor._

"Think I've seen that once or twice myself." Realizing that Inara was probably waiting for him in her shuttle, Mal choked down a few more bites of his breakfast, then stood. "So...we're all right, then, Zoe?" He felt like it was something he shouldn't have to ask, but the woman sitting across from him was his oldest living friend, and he hated the thought that she might be holding his poor attitude in the field that morning against him. For once in their relationship, he needed her to voice her opinion of him. When she finally gave him a slow nod, a weight lifted from his shoulders. "Glad to hear it." Nodding back, he left the dining room, but then turned and glanced back in at her.

"Something, captain?" Zoe asked him languidly.

"Almost forgot-I told Simon to stay away from Jayne unless you or I tell him otherwise. You think he needs somethin', don't hesitate to make Simon do it. Just watch him."

"Was plannin' on doing that anyway, sir. I figure I can probably handle whatever Jayne needs myself, though. No point in taking any chances."

"All right." He paused, half-turning. "Thanks, Zoe," he said finally, then spun on his heel and strode away, his footfalls echoing down the hallway.

After he'd left, Zoe stifled a yawn. _I don't dare go to bed, captain's gonna need someone to go with Simon into town for the blood. I am awfully tired, though. _Putting her feet up on the edge of the table, she leaned back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. When her neck protested, she reminded herself tersely that she'd slept in plenty of colder, wetter, and more cramped spots in her life. Finally just ignoring the irked muscles, she closed her eyes and drifted.


	15. Heart to Heart

Inara moved nervously around her shuttle, tugging at the draped fabric on the walls, stooping to pick up tiny pieces of fuzz on the carpets, and generally fidgeting. _This is ridiculous. It isn't as if he's never been in here before, after all. I've just never actually invited him. There is absolutely no reason to be nervous. _Nevertheless, her hand slipped up to her mouth and she began to chew gently at one immaculately painted fingernail. _Quit that! _she lectured herself when she realized what she was doing. _Goodness, I haven't chewed my nails in years. I really _am _anxious about this. _She couldn't blame herself, though, when she recalled the haunted look on Mal's face down in the corridor. _He looked so guilty. He's never looked like that before.  
_When the knock finally came at the door-_he actually knocked,_ she marveled-she practically flew to it, opening to a very uncertain looking Mal, who stood back with his hands shoved in his pockets until she reached out to him. "Won't you come in?" she managed to choke out.

"Uh...sure." Gulping, he stepped past her and stood by awkwardly while she glanced up and down the hall before securing the door. "Are we sitting, or...?"

"Of course. Here, please sit here." She directed him to a settee across from her preferred seat, then busied her hands with tea, hoping that the familiar routine would calm the slight shaking in her digits. "How is he?" she asked after a brief silence. "He looked unwell earlier, when I was visiting with Kaylee."

"Well, hell, 'Nara, the man's been shot. Don't reckon he'd look very good so soon after that."

She grimaced at his language. "Malcolm, I would very much prefer it if you refrained from swearing while you are here. It's so...undignified."

"You don't figure the situation warrants a few angry words?" His voice had tightened. "He took a bullet that had my name written all over it. You don't think that's worth my swearing over? I suppose you ain't worried about him dyin', then, either." He made as if to stand up, pausing only when Inara set down the teapot with a bang that made them both jump.

"I resent that," she replied, her face reddening as her eyes welled with tears. "You have no idea-_no_ idea, Malcolm-how thankful I am that Jayne saved you. I am very upset that he was injured in the process, and I most sincerely hope that he survives, particularly since Kaylee seems to be depending on him to do so. I understand that you are distressed, as Zoe was earlier this morning, about how we have all treated Jayne in the past, and I assure you that, given the opportunity, I will act quite differently towards him in the future. I invited you up here because you seemed very distraught when we spoke earlier, and I want to help alleviate some of your bad feelings, whatever they may be tied to. All I am asking is that you try to observe a certain level of decorum while you are in my personal space. Does that seem like too much to ask?"

"...No," he ground out bitterly after a moment. "It doesn't." He resumed his seat and watched as Inara picked the teapot back up and carefully poured two cups, handing the first to him and taking the second for herself. Looking up after his first sip, he found the Companion's eyes riveted to him, watching, and swallowed heavily. "'Nara?"

"Yes?"

"I..." _Is this really something I ought to tell her? Zoe ain't holdin' it against me, that should be enough. I don't know why I still feel so guilty about the way I acted out there earlier...I just...I actually called him worthless. _There, that was what had been bothering him; he'd put the way they had all been treating Jayne into a single word, and then he had flung it at him when he was already down. Worse yet, he had done it after the man had saved his life. _Not that I knew that part at the time,_ he allowed. _But still...wasn't right of me in any case._

"Mal." He looked up from where his hands were twisting around themselves and into the gentlest look any woman besides his mother had ever given him. "No matter what the problem is, you must know that I won't think any less of you for it. I hope you'll tell me what's bothering you; you look so miserable right now."

"I don't really know if I should. It ain't exactly something I'm proud of." He sighed. _I want to talk it out, but I don't know if I can. Least not with you. Then again, you're probably the only person who won't think less of me for it, and even if ya do it won't show through those manners of yours. _He raised his head again, but her seat was empty. _Where... _ When she sat down beside him a moment later, he turned quickly, his eyes widening. "...Inara?"

"Tell me, Mal," she said simply. There was a note of firmness in her voice that told him she would be extremely angry if he refused to speak. _Whatever this is, he has to talk it out,_ she reminded herself. _It's just going to fester inside of him if he doesn't, and I cannot stand the self-doubt I'm seeing in his eyes right now._

He couldn't look at her as he began to speak. Guilt turning his head, he whispered what he had done that morning. "I was angry with him, with Jayne," he clarified. "I figured...I honestly thought he was working with them, trying to get Zoe and me killed. I only believed it for a few minutes, but...it was long enough. Too long. I cursed him out some to Zoe right after the fight, and I ignored that he was hurt until she realized what he'd done, that he'd taken that bullet for me. I told her he was a traitor-shouted it at her is more like it- and told her I wasn't going to bring Simon out for him. I really wasn't going to til she called me an idiot and I recognized that she was telling the truth of what had happened. I just...I can't believe I did all that."

"Have you spoken to Zoe about this?" she asked gently, assuming that it was a perceived break in Mal's close relationship with his second in command that was the cause of his agony.

"I talked to her right before I came up here," he replied, waving it off. "We're fine, but that ain't the problem. The problem is Jayne." Frustrated by her baffled visage, he got up and began to pace the short length of the shuttle, his own face pensive.

"Why is that? I'm certain Jayne didn't hear what you said. Zoe told us that it took you several minutes to finish the fight and get back to him. Surely by that point he was unconscious." She put her teacup on the table and turned in her seat to watch him walk quickly back and forth.

"There were other things he could have heard, things I shouted at him right after he'd been shot. He could have been conscious then."

"What are you worried about him remembering, Mal?"

_That I accused him of betraying _us, he wanted to shout. _That I kicked him, not that I ain't hit him before for other things, when he's needed it to get his head straight. That I- _"I called him worthless," he choked out. "He ain't worthless, 'Nara, I knew that then and I really know it now. I'd be dead if he hadn't done what he did, and thinking back on it some I realized that at one point or another we'd have all been dead if he hadn't been in the right place at the right time, just...bein' Jayne, watching our backs and being suspicious of anything that moves. I didn't have no right to call him that, and I really didn't have no right to treat him like he ain't important."

"Oh, Mal," she whispered, rising and moving towards him. "You just reacted, that's all. It was an honest mistake. We both know that you didn't mean what you said."

"I don't say things I don't mean," he shot back, crossing his arms as she drew up in front of him.

For a moment she looked as if she would snap right back at him, but then her defensive posture lessened and she raised her hands to placate him. "All right, you did mean it," she agreed, continuing on quickly when he began to open his mouth angrily to object again. "Maybe you just hadn't reached a conscious realization about the fact that he is not, in fact, worthless. You knew in the back of your head that he wasn't, but that knowledge hadn't made it to the part of your mind that controls your day-to-day interactions with him. Now, however, it has made that move, and when you became aware of the fact of Jayne's usefulness and importance on your crew, you immediately began to chastise yourself for actions you took before you realized. That's why you're feeling so guilty, Mal. You're blaming yourself for things you couldn't have helped."

"I should have seen it before now. Shouldn't have taken him almost dyin' for me to see it."

"It shouldn't have taken _any _of us something so awful to realize it," Inara countered. "But it did. Now, fortunately, we have the opportunity to change things, and make sure that he knows that he is appreciated."

"Maybe we do," Mal replied, his posture tensing. "He's still in bad shape. If we don't get some blood in him-"

"He will be fine," Inara interrupted him, placing her hands on his shoulders and smiling gently when he looked at her.

"You can't know that. You said yourself he looked bad earlier."

"You're right. I did say that, and he really did look bad. I honestly..." she bit her lip briefly, "I honestly don't expect him to make it, deep down. But Kaylee does, Mal. Kaylee's so certain about that fact that she won't leave his side, and I trust her instincts on this because I think that she is the only person on this ship who knows him well enough to fairly judge what he is and isn't capable of."

"She ain't left his side because she's afraid he'll die when she's not there."

"No, Mal. She's had moments of doubt, but I have never had her direct a rough word towards me until this morning, when she told me with absolutely no question in her voice that he would be fine. Twice, in fact. She's not there because she's afraid of him dying without her, she's there because she wants her face to be the first one he sees when he finally wakes up." As she spoke, Inara herself came to believe what she was telling Mal. _All sense is working against his survival, and yet I can't help but think that Kaylee is right. Even if she has no idea, it could be that if enough of us believe that he'll pull through, he will. I'm willing to believe it's possible, if doing so might help Kaylee be happy in the end._

"Inara?" Mal said finally.

"Yes, Mal?"

"I'm just gonna have to trust you on this one."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you women have clearly got some sort of understanding about what is and isn't possible that goes beyond regular sense. Much as I want Jayne to be all right, I just don't see how it's possible for him to be that way, and no amount of you explainin' it to me will make me see how that would work out."

With an exasperated sigh, she leaned in and left her second kiss of the day on his cheek. "Maybe you just have to put sense out of it, Mal, and trust me. Can you do that, if not for me, or for Jayne, or for yourself, then for the poor girl who is sitting down in the infirmary right now hoping that the man she loves comes back to her?"

He glanced down at the floor, fighting the urge to raise his hand to his face and feel the burning spot where her lips had brushed his skin. _Kaylee..._ He could almost believe it, if only to keep her smiling. Inara's finger was suddenly under his chin, forcing him to meet her gaze. _Inara. I can believe it, for you. _"I'll trust you on it," he said finally. "I just hope like..." he trailed off, remembering her injunction against swearing. "I just hope you and Kaylee are right."

"So do I, Mal," she answered softly, leaning into his shoulder and smiling gratefully when his arms wrapped around her after what she was certain was the shortest socially acceptable pause known to humanity. "So do I."


	16. Malpractice

Simon sat on his bed, remembering.

_They were in the midst of a huge crowd, throngs of people ebbing and flowing, words of congratulations mixing with tears of joy and occasional 'huzzahs' as graduates found their friends and verbally celebrated their triumph. The sun had merely warmed his shoulders under the black gown rather than creating the rivulets of sweat he had feared would engulf him on this glorious spring day, and he managed an almost-real look of confidence as he left his parents in their seats and headed towards the rows reserved for him and his academic compatriots. The small writing screen in his hand was slick with the condensation of his fear as he sat in his assigned place and waited for the pomp and circumstance to begin._

_Once it did, it seemed to go on forever, and yet the time passed too quickly. He ground his teeth when the valedictorian and salutatorian gave their speeches, trying to quell the jealousy that rose within him. 'A full hundred and one people in this graduating class,' he griped to himself, 'and that damned Evvie Parker had to edge me out by two points in the final exams. Those two points shouldn't have meant anything compared to the fact that I'm graduating a year early. I should be up there giving that speech, not her.' It didn't matter that he hated public speaking, or that he had labored for days over the brief words he was to speak as the president of the Aspiring Surgeons Partnership; he had been relegated to the lowest position in the uppermost triumvirate of graduates, and it secretly infuriated him. Then, suddenly, he didn't have the energy to stew over the successes of others, because the dean of the medical school was introducing him, inviting him to step up on stage and say his piece. He tried desperately not to shake as he mounted the steps. 'I wish River were here. At least then there would have been someone to concentrate on who wouldn't be judging me.' His father and mother, he knew, would be measuring his meter and cadence, weighing the strength and validity of his sentences so that they could be compared with the words spoken by others that day. Concentrating so fully on his rhythm and tone, on making eye contact and timing his pauses, that he would for the rest of his life be completely unable to recall what exactly he had said, he moved through the laboriously crafted lines on the tiny screen, retreating gratefully back to his seat through a wave of polite applause when he had finally finished._

_"Great job, Simon!" Evvie leaned over to whisper, a genuine smile on her lips. For a moment he almost felt close to her, before he recalled that she was sitting in what should have been his seat, second from the end rather than third. "Thanks," he had replied, pasting on a distant look as the dean came back to the podium and asked the graduates to rise._

_'This is it,' his mind buzzed. 'This is what I've been waiting for.' After so many long hours of reading, and study, and practicum upon practicum...after spending an endless twelve months slowly taking apart and examining each piece of the same preservative-reeking corpse in the basement laboratories, choking on stifling humidity in the summer and freezing through the rainy winter...after enduring exam after exam on every fathomable failure the human body could experience...now, at the end of all of those things, he had been deemed worthy of swearing to what was, in his philosophy at least, the most sacred of all oaths a human being could ever hope to take._

_"Graduates, please repeat after me," the dean addressed them solemnly, the faculty of the medical school rising behind him. Simon winced, expecting one of the more rambunctious scholars behind him to mock the ceremony by shouting out "after me," but the only sound was the slight rustling of the heavy black raiments of just over a hundred young men and women. Finally, having given everyone an ample opportunity to make a fool of themselves, the dean launched into the Oath itself:_

_I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: _

_I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. _

_I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. _

_I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. _

_I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. _

_I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. _

_I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. _

_I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. _

_I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. _

_If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.__1_

_He repeated each line carefully after the dean, enunciating every syllable and letting the individual words fill his mouth so that he could savor their flavor before continuing to the next. The others around him seemed to be doing the same thing, almost as caught up as he was in the feeling of amazement that crowned every movement of his lips. There was no sound sweeter to the human ear, he was certain, than that of their voices-of __his__ voice-swearing to do no harm._

"Do no harm, do no harm." River's sing-song chanting broke him out of his daydream, chasing away the last breath of memory and leaving him with a thin sheen of moisture over his brow. She sat in the chair opposite his bed, knees pulled up to her chin as she peered out at him through a curtain of dark hair. "_Meimei,_" he said finally, not quite willing to be angry at her for interrupting his meditations on the past. He started as he realized that he had not heard her come in, and had no idea how long she had been watching him or what she had been up to since the last time he saw her. "Where have you been?"

"Do no harm?" she asked, raising her head along with the pitch of her voice at the end of her sentence.

"What are you-" _Is she referring to the Oath? I know she heard what I promised him that day. _"River, I never meant to-"

"Butterflies are drawn to candles." She waved her hands about in wild circles, rising from her seat to spin about a few times, her skirt swirling when she stopped cold and stared at him with wide eyes. "Sometimes they get burned," she informed him gravely.

_Above all, I must not play at God, _the words echoed unbidden in his head as he stared at her. He tried to forget the thought that had run through his mind a few hours earlier. _It's bad enough that they wouldn't know any better if I just let him..._ 'Die' had been the word he'd trailed off on then, the word he couldn't avoid now. _I didn't mean it. I wouldn't have just let him die. I __wouldn't__ have. I could never..._ But he had performed certain actions knowing they put Jayne's life in danger, and he could not escape that fact, even if he had been acting unconsciously. _I didn't keep the pressure on. I didn't know his blood type. I didn't set up plasma. _He enumerated his missteps miserably while River held her hands up between her face and the light, trying to see through the edges of her fingers. _I forgot how to be humble, _he bemoaned. _I broke my oath. I promised mother, and father, and myself, and...and everyone that day, promised to be humble and only ever to help, and I...I failed._ He sniffed delicately, highly aware of the sensitive state his nose was in despite a liberal application of cold packs only a short time before. _What good is my word if I can't even keep a promise to myself?_

"Counterfeit coins are discovered eventually," River mused, her head cocked to one side while she rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. "No one builds bridges or skyscrapers of platinum. Copper is a far more useful and efficient material." Seeing her brother's look of consternation, she grinned broadly. "Your platinum is wearing off, Simon. Look," she flew towards him, swiping a finger just under his nose and stepping back quickly as she proudly held up the smear of fresh blood she'd obtained.

"...River?" Simon asked tentatively as she examined her now begrimed hand, her face screwing up for a moment. "Ugh, River!" he gasped as she suddenly licked the fluid off of her hand. "Don't do that, that's unsanitary!" Appalled, he reached for something to wipe her hand with, but by the time he knelt before her the invasive finger was clean and she held the tip of her tongue between her lips, looking like nothing less than the finest of wine connoisseurs considering how to describe the mixture setting off sparks on their palate. His mouth fell open in shock as he raised the napkin to cover his nose in case she tried to get a second taste.

"It doesn't taste very blue," she said finally, nodding sagely as if that was what she had expected all along. "But the good news is that you don't have anemia." She flashed another broad smile at the still-gaping Simon, then slipped effortlessly through his reaching grasp and disappeared into the corridor. "You can't change the ingredients once the batter has cooked!" she called back through the hatch at him.

When she had gone and some of his shock had subsided, Simon shook his head, dug through his bedside table for a mild sedative to tame the throbbing in his face, and then lay down with the highly unlikely hope that sleep would clarify River's words. _Well, _he reflected as his eyes slipped shut, _as River pointed out, at least I don't have anemia. Unlike Jayne, _he added with an involuntary snort of cruel mirth which immediately invoked a whimper as the swollen tissue in his nose recoiled. His mouth stayed twisted in a grimace as he dropped into sleep, trying to ignore the steady drip of guilt in the back of his conscience.

1This is the actual modern version of the Hippocratic Oath which many medical schools currently use.


	17. Pity Parley

_There was gunfire everywhere. No safe places existed; every hidey hole could turn into a grave in an instant, given the right ricochet, the right artillery shell, or the right sniper. She hunkered down as far as she could, knowing she couldn't escape but trying anyway, tucking her head against the ground until the dirt worked into her ear. Whenever she managed to open her eyes the slightest crack, all she could see was Mal, holding onto the ground just as desperately as she was. He squinted back at her, his mouth opening to shout her name over the deafening din, but all she could hear was the bomb whistling ever closer overhead..._

"Zoe?"

She snapped awake, her hand drawing her gun and leveling it before she recognized the voice that had spoken her name. "Gorram it, husband!" she exclaimed, immediately lifting the barrel away from the expression of fear that had flash-frozen onto his face at her reaction. "Don't you know better by now than to wake me up from a bad dream?"

Wash just stared at her, his mouth opening and closing like that of a fish discovering open air. Finally she took a deep breath and placed her sidearm back in it's holster. "Sorry. Guess I'm just a bit jumpy after this morning." _That dream. Mal was fixin' to get killed in it. I must be a bit more shaken up than I thought, if I'm getting war nightmares. _Her thoughts blackened as she considered how the sleep visions might worsen if Jayne didn't pull through. _Get the feeling that if that happens, it ain't gonna be Mal hugging the dirt next to me in the middle of no-man's-land. It'll be awful awkward if I start waking up calling out Jayne's name cause of dreams. _As she gave her husband an apologetic smile, he relaxed enough to bow dramatically over the table, his arms stretching out towards her as he rolled his eyes in mock terror.

"Oh, spare my pitiful self, great and glorious shield-maiden! If you will but let me live, I consent to be your bed slave for all of my days!" Twisting his face into awful mockeries of solicitation, he grabbed her hand and began to cover it in slobbering kisses, all the while begging for mercy in a horrible falsetto that Zoe was certain would shatter crystal if given the chance to be in the same room as that precious luxury. In a few minutes she was practically reduced to tears by the hilarity of his pleas.

Once his wife was suitably amused and no longer wore the sickening half-defensive, half-petrified look that had masked her slumbering features when he entered the room, Wash dropped into her lap, panting from exertion. His mouth twitched easily into a grin when her forehead dropped against his arm, her shoulders still shaking with amusement. "All right, peasant," she managed to retort finally. "I guess I'll let ya live. But," she growled, barely keeping her countenance when he put on a look of enraptured terror, "I'm keeping that promise about you being my bed slave in mind."

"Your wish is my command, my lady!" Wash tried to bow to her again, but ended up knocking their heads together. "Ow!"

"_Ta ma de!"_ Holding their respective injuries, they dissolved into laughter.

"_Zen me le?"__1_Mal demanded as he entered the dining room and found the two of them falling all over one another in giggles. "Wash, I could have sworn you were supposed to be flyin' us somewhere. Or do I recall wrong?"

"No, captain, I-" he had to stop as another bout hit him. Wiping at his eyes when it had passed, he tried not to beam at the man glaring from the doorway. "We'll be landing in about fifteen minutes," he managed eventually, biting the insides of his cheeks in an attempt to control himself.

Mal nodded in response before turning to his second in command, who had regained most of her normal demeanor and was waiting for orders. _It'd almost look like they hadn't just been chortlin' their heads off if it weren't for the fact that she's still got Wash perched on her,_ he reflected. _Ain't her gun digging into his leg?_ Pushing the thought aside, he cleared his throat. "Zoe, you best go hunt Simon down. Want you to go with him into town, get anything you think might be needed over the next few days. Just medical stuff, though. Don't go blowin' all this on fancy stuff," he added, tossing her a bag that was heavy with coin. "I ain't taken anyone's pay out of it yet."_ Waitin' to see if I'm gonna have to take out the usual number of cuts or not._

Zoe caught the money easily as Wash climbed off of her and ambled away to prepare the ship to land. "Figured you would have at least held back ten percent," she remarked, not catching her captain's eye.

Mal caught the subtle message; ten percent was Jayne's cut, and it wasn't really right that the mercenary's share of the profit should suffer from the purchases that were necessary to save his life, especially considering how his life had come to be at risk. "No clue how much you might need in town," he answered evasively.

"Don't figure it'll be this much by a long shot."

"Well, you're probably right about that, Zoe, but I don't want you to get into town and find that you've got to scrimp cause I didn't give ya enough." Glancing around to make sure there were no unauthorized ears about, he went on. "Besides, if he doesn't make it-" he paused, his lips pursing tightly for a moment at the distasteful thought "-I'm sendin' the bulk of what's left to his ma, along with a letter that I ain't sure I'm gonna be any damn good at writing. Everyone else can get by on a pittance until the next job comes along, and I've got a bit set back in case anything goes wrong with Serenity in the meantime."

She watched him for a long moment as he stared down at the floor, his balled fists shoved into his pockets. "Best be careful," she warned finally, her voice soft. "You start doing things like that, people are gonna think you're going soft." When he glanced up at her, she gave him a sad smile.

"Yeah, well, I figure maybe I owe him a little of that," he replied tautly. _If I can't give him the apology he deserves, I can at least try to give it to the folks he'd be leaving behind, especially the ones that won't ever quite understand what happened or why._

Zoe stood up and secured the money to her belt before she moved to search for Simon. Hesitating as she passed Mal in the doorway, she gripped his shoulder for a brief second. "Pittance'd be more than plenty," she whispered.

Hearing these last words from her carefully chosen eavesdropping spot, River smiled to herself. _Triangles are the strongest of shapes. Impossible to crush, and pointy in all directions. _She hugged her knees delightedly. _Everyone inside can be safe. _

1What's going on?


	18. Simply Shiny

Inara couldn't sit still after Mal left. _He said he appreciated my advice,_ she remembered giddily. _I don't recall that he's ever thanked me before now, at least not when he wasn't being sarcastic. Did he really...did he really enjoy speaking with me, as he said he did? _She marveled at the fact that they had managed to have a serious conversation without one of them becoming frustrated and stomping off to sulk. _He hugged me at the end. No, it was more than a hug, he was holding me. I never imagined that being held could feel so very right, so completely different from the way anyone else's arms have ever felt around me. I felt whole with him so close and receptive, whole in a way I have never been before._ She stopped in her tracks, abandoning the slow circle she had been walking around her shuttle. _If __that__ is how Kaylee feels about Jayne, I cannot blame her for being so defensive, or so desperate to keep him alive._ Shaking her head, she chuckled slightly to herself. _I never would have thought that Kaylee knew something about love that I did not._ _Today has just been full of lessons. _

Now that she understood the mechanic's feelings about the wounded man whose side she refused to leave, the Companion couldn't help but be overwhelmed with gratitude. _Thank goodness you were there, Jayne, _she thought as she made her way down to the infirmary, determined to check on Serenity's newest couple. _Otherwise it would be I haunting that bed, as Kaylee is doing now, waiting anxiously to know how everything was going to turn out. I cannot predict how well I could have held up if that bullet had hit the person it was intended for, and I am so thankful that I do not have to find out. My greatest wish now is that Kaylee's miserable watch ends as soon as possible, and that it comes to a positive conclusion._ _If only there was something I could do to help make that- _Her thoughts broke off as she drew close enough to the infirmary window to see into the room, and the sober cast of her face softened as she took in the scene before her. _"_Oh, Kaylee, _meimei, _you poor, sweet, precious thing," she whispered as her hand rose to cover her mouth.

Having slept poorly the night before, the mechanic had grown increasingly exhausted as she attended lovingly to the injured mercenary. Eventually she had only been able to stay awake by reminding herself that before much time passed he was going to need more painkillers, and the thought of Jayne suffering while she slept had been sufficient to keep her alert. When, after what felt to her stressed and rest-deprived mind like countless hours, he had started to shift uncomfortably in her arms, she had been ready with a dose of smoothers. The only delay she had allowed herself in easing his pain chemically had been a few brief seconds during which she had placed a soft kiss on his lips, hoping that he might be close enough to consciousness to register her touch. As the powerful sedatives calmed him back into a frightening stillness, she had yawned, then curled herself cautiously around him on the narrow bed, refusing to even consider the idea of sleeping somewhere that she could not wake up and immediately know that he was still breathing, still clinging to life beside her.

She had just fallen asleep, her head resting on Jayne's shoulder, one arm draped delicately across his stomach, when Inara came to the infirmary. Captivated by the tableau, the Companion stood unmoving for several minutes, pulling her eyes away only when she heard footsteps approaching.

"You seen Simon anywhere, Inara?" Zoe asked as she drew closer. She was taken aback when the Companion glanced nervously toward the infirmary and signaled frantically for her to lower her voice. _What's she worried about me disturbing? Jayne's doped to the gills, I'm sure, so there ain't really any reason for us to be especially quiet. He's not going to wake up if he's full of smoothers._ She shot the other woman an odd look as she stopped beside her, then followed her gaze to the window. _Oh...well, I guess that's a damn fine reason to be extra quiet, after all. _A grin spread across her face and lit up her eyes as she considered her two sleeping crew mates. _Can't help but think that's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen._

"They are so adorable like that," Inara said quietly.

"Never figured I'd hear Jayne described as 'adorable,' but I have to agree with you," Zoe concurred. "They do make a shiny pair."

Recalling that the second-in-command had seemed to be on a mission, Inara nodded her assent and inquired about her purpose without looking away. "You were looking for Simon?"

"Yeah. I need him to go into town with me, pick up supplies." Zoe's gaze, too, remained on the slumbering pair.

"Are we nearly there, then?" the Companion asked, a hint of relief in her voice.

"Should be landing any minute now. You haven't seen him, then?"

"No, I'm afraid I haven't. Can you get what Jayne needs if you can't find him?" She knew that Zoe had a fair amount of practical experience in basic medicine, but was uncertain exactly how far that knowledge stretched. _If she can't find Simon, and she doesn't bring back the right items..._

"I'm going to check his bunk. If I can't find him before he hit dirt, I'm going without him." As she spoke her jaw tightened. _And if I have to go without him, when I get back I'm gonna finish what Mal started. He's been on this ship long enough to know what it feels like when we're landing, he ought to be either here or in the cargo bay waitin' to go get supplies._

"Good luck," Inara said as Zoe turned away to continue her search for the ship's surgeon. _Hurry back, please._ _It's difficult to know for certain from here, but I would almost swear that he's even paler than he was earlier._ As the thought ran through her head, Jayne shivered slightly, evoking a tiny moan of concern from the woman curled tightly against his side. Frowning, she rounded the corner and entered the room, peering around helplessly. _There must be extra blankets somewhere in here, it would be foolish for there to only be one. _As Kaylee moaned again in reaction to a more violent shiver, the standing woman narrowed her eyes and straightened her shoulders. _I don't care how particular Simon is about who goes through his cupboards,_ she told herself as she began to rummage with an uncharacteristic roughness, leaving bottles and boxes disorganized as she mounted a hasty search for anything that would lend a little extra warmth to the man responsible for saving Mal's life. _He'll have plenty of time to put it all back where it belongs once we get Jayne better. Right now, that is by far the more important task. _She huffed angrily as another cabinet yielded no blankets. _And if he doesn't like it, I will be more than happy to tell him exactly how things stand._


	19. Dealing

Zoe kicked the door to Simon's bunk impatiently. _You better be in there, _she threatened mentally, crossing her arms and waiting to see if there would be a response from inside. Just as she was about to give up, a voice wafted through the metal.

"Who...who is it?"

"Mal says you're comin' to town with me to get the blood," Zoe called back. "Already wasted time looking for ya, so get out here." _Ain't gonna watch Kaylee spend the rest of her life in misery on account of you being slow. _When the door opened with a slight rush of air, she stepped back, allowing the battered surgeon to climb the ladder and step into the hallway. She almost couldn't hide her smile when she saw his face. _Gorram, Mal did a hell of a job on ya. Good for him. I'm just sorry I missed it._ "Let's go," she said simply, turning away and heading towards the cargo bay so they could exit the ship.

Simon struggled to keep up with her fast pace, down the stairs, across Serenity's empty belly, and outside, where they both paused for a moment to shield their eyes from the dust that was still settling from their arrival. _Good job, husband,_ Zoe congratulated her other half. _Just outside of town, on the right side for that doctor's we saw yesterday. Ought to be a quick trip. _She strode down the ramp and towards where the single main street petered out into nothingness, hearing the man behind her curse quietly under his breath as he followed.

"Zoe?" he asked as they approached the first of the town's mean buildings.

"What is it?" she replied brusquely, not bothering to look at him.

"Ah...how is Jayne?"

If she hadn't known that it was vital to get the blood purchased and back onto the ship as quickly as possible, she would have wheeled on him. "Reckon I'd tell ya, if I thought you actually gave a damn," she snarled instead.

"I care enough to ask," Simon pouted back. "Generally when a patient lands on my table I like to be kept updated on their condition. A simple answer would suffice." _I know I wasn't a very good surgeon earlier, but she could at least acknowledge that I'm showing an interest now,_ he griped to himself.

"He's alive," she said finally. "Right now that's all he is, and he's lucky to be that. Now save your breath so ya can keep up." Once more ignoring his muttering, she quickened her pace, turning into one of the few substantial structures they came to with a mere glance at the sign over the door. _If this doctor ain't got the right type, I don't know what we're gonna do._

A hugely rotund man came forward from the counter at the back of the room, giving Zoe a lecherous grin as he did. "Can I help you?" he asked, rubbing his hands together.

"We're looking to buy some blood." _Don't see a cooler in here anywhere, _she noted as she looked around. _That ain't a good start. _"B negative. You got any?"

"A lady who goes straight to business. I do like that in a woman." He considered the pair of them for a moment. "I am surprised to hear that you need such a rare type, however. Which of you is it for? You both seem perfectly healthy."

"Ain't for us. It's for a friend. You got any, or do we need to go somewhere else?" _Not that I know where else we would go, seeing as how you're the only doctor for about three hundred miles in any direction. _"We'd take that universal type, if you've got that instead."

"Oh, well, I couldn't possibly let any of that particular commodity go," the man's grin spread even wider as he noted the heavy money bag hanging from Zoe's belt. "Not cheaply, at least."

She glared at him, cursing herself at the same time. _Damn stupid of me to not hide some of what Mal gave me, or at least split it between me and Simon. I was in such a hurry to get going..._ "I told you, it's for a friend."

"Well, my dear, I'm afraid I only lower costs for friends of my own, not for those who are only friends of others." He sidled closer, and Zoe tried not to wrinkle her nose at the overwhelming scent of cheap, too-liberally applied cologne. "Of course, if _you _were to become a friend of mine, then perhaps we could come to some sort of a deal, hmm?"

"What I think she meant," Simon burst out, stepping between them as the woman's hand inched towards her weapon at the clearly sexual implication, "was that cost is not an issue in this case." _This man is supposed to be a doctor? I don't know that I have ever seen someone so morbidly obese in my entire life. He has to know what kind of strain he's putting on his body._

"I see," the town doctor faltered, his smile falling a little. "It's a shame, really. I am willing to make drastic price cuts for my friends, from time to time, and the item you are looking for is quite expensive..."

"You have it, then?" Zoe asked gruffly, pushing back in front of Simon. "How much?"

"Hmm...that depends on so many factors, my dear." As he spoke, the round man retreated behind his counter and, moving a curtain aside, revealed a cooling unit set into the wall. "Let me see..."

_What is someone in the middle of no where doing with so much blood? _Simon wondered, staring in amazement as the other man opened the cooler door. _I haven't seen that much in one place since I left the hospital. _"You must have very eager donors in this town," he commented.

"Oh, yes, they are quite eager to...donate." Picking up a bottle and reading it's label, he nodded. "Ah, here we are. B negative. Drawn less than a week ago."

"How much of that have you got?" Zoe queried, swallowing heavily as the dark liquid lapped the sides of the glass. Looking at it, she couldn't help but remember how that same substance had been pouring out of Jayne in the field that morning. _Gonna need more than that. Gotta put back in what he lost, can't just do it halfway._

A gleam entered the fat man's eyes at her words. "Well, now, that depends on how much money you have in that purse, my dear."

"What's the cost?" she fired back.

He stood straighter, his gaze hardening as it met hers. "A thousand a bottle."

Simon choked. "A thousand per bottle?" he gasped. "That's completely outrageous! That bottle wouldn't go for more than fifteen on Persephone!"

"This enchanted hovel is not Persephone," the other man pointed out. "I think you are well aware of the fact that rare items like this fetch a higher price the further out on the Rim one gets." As he spoke he began to toss the precious fluid from one hand to the other, watching them secretly from the corners of his eyes for a reaction.

"That price ain't gonna cut it," Zoe said flatly. _We ain't got time to go anywhere else for it, you can tell just lookin' at him that he's getting weaker. We have to get it here, even if this price gouging _hun dan _takes every last penny. Never should have told him it was for a friend, now he knows we're desperate. _"I won't give you more than two-fifty." _Don't drop it, damn it, we __need__ that. _

_Two fifty for a bottle of blood? _Simon thought, gaping at her. _And he'll talk you up from there. You're actually going to let him fleece you out of every cent you're carrying, Zoe? I cannot believe this... _

"All right, my dear, seeing as how you are so desperate to save your friend..." He continued to fiddle with the bottle, rolling it back and forth until the blood inside was foamy as he pretended to consider their offer. "Nine fifty." His counter-offer was despicable, and they all knew it, but the seller just smiled.

"Three hundred."

"Eight seventy five."

"Three fifty." _I don't even know how much I've got with me,_ she realized a bit sheepishly. Fingering the bag, she tried to guess how much it contained based on it's weight. _A thousand in there, easy, maybe leaning towards two. _

_"_Seven hundred."

"Four twenty-five."

"Six fifty."

The price war stopped, the combatants breaking to size one another up. Finally the huge doctor said what they were both thinking. "Why don't we meet in the middle?" he suggested. "I will give you a discount for being so very lovely, and allow you to have this bottle for five hundred."

"Four seventy-five per bottle."

He nodded, a pleased gleam entering his eye. "All right. Done."

"But not that one." She jabbed one finger toward the jar he held.

"I'm sorry?"

"Not that bottle. One that ain't so riled up. And..." She did some quick calculations in her head, adding what little money she had personally to the rough amount Mal had given her. "Four more besides that." _Hope Mal don't mind explaining to everyone why there isn't a dime left of pay from this job. Be lucky if he doesn't take the bag, too.  
_"Hmm..." The fat man looked perplexed as he turned back to the cooler. "I'm afraid I can only give you three, my dear."

"All right, then, those three of the B negative and two a the universal stuff."

"Ah, but the universal blood is far more valuable. Everyone wants a bottle of universal blood, but very few want to buy the rarer types."

"Then why're we paying so gorram much for something you say no one but us wants?!" she exclaimed.

He smiled languidly. "Because, my dear, that is the price of your friend's life. Four seventy-five, times three. I would love to sell you more, I really would, but I promised a friend of mine three pints, and I simply cannot go back on my promises. What kind of a doctor would I be if I started doing that?" His gaze shifted over to Simon briefly as Serenity's resident surgeon flinched at those words. "The universal type starts at twenty five hundred per bottle," he told Zoe quietly. "Do you care to deal?"

"Just put three of the B negative in a bag," she ground out. _This is_ _stupid, paying almost fifteen hundred for three bottles of blood that no one except us and one other person in the whole Verse are wanting. Captain's going to flip, but what the hell else can we do? _Grimacing, she turned to Simon. "We need anything else? We have enough painkillers to keep him from feeling much for a while?"

"We really only needed the blood," the doctor replied, watching carefully while the fat man removed three bottles of blood from the cooler, replacing the shaken one as he did. _He has half a shelf in there that's nothing but B negative,_ he marveled. _Where did he get so much of such a rare type? And why is he being so parsimonious with it? _

"There we are. I believe that comes to fourteen twenty-five, but let us be civil and call it fourteen even," he simpered. "Unless, of course, you were interested in making this a more...friendly...deal?"

Zoe pulled her hand from the bag of coin and placed a stack of platinum on the counter, her lips pulling tight against her teeth as she reached for the blood. "I reckon I've been just about as friendly with you as I care to get," she drawled, inclining her head towards him slightly. "Good day to ya. Let's go," she ordered Simon, pushing him in front of her as they left.

Simon reflected on the man they had just left as they walked silently back to the ship. _He wasn't a doctor, he was a profiteer. _Noting the pallor and lethargy of the few townspeople they passed, an idea began to form in the back of his head. _He has the only really stable looking building in town. All of these people look sick. He's...he's farming them for blood, then selling it to the highest bidder. This far out on the Rim, even the Alliance might buy from him occasionally. He must be preparing an order to go out; that would explain why the cooler was full, and why everyone looks so drained._ "Zoe..."

"I know. He's crooked as all hell. That ain't important right now, though, so just keep your mouth shut until we get this blood back." _If he's got this place as locked down as it looks, we don't want the wrong person to hear us. Things could get ugly. _Keeping her eyes locked on Serenity in the distance, Zoe walked on, clutching the bag containing the three priceless bottles of B negative. _Just hope like hell this is going to be enough, cause we can't afford his prices again, even if he would sell to us. _At her waist, the few coins that were left of what Mal had sent her out with jingled faintly in agreement. _Mal can keep my pittance,_ she thought. _If Jayne lives, that's payment enough for me._


	20. Ruminating Guilt

Mal stopped pacing and turned towards the door as Zoe and Simon entered the ship. "Startin' to wonder what was taking so long."

"Sorry, captain," the second in command apologized. "We had to do a bit of bargaining with a less than savory character." The captain's eyes flew to the deflated bag at her waist, and she caught the wince that darted across his face.

"Did you get enough?"

"Three bottles. Hopefully that'll be enough, because we can't even afford Persephone prices after that."

Mal's jaw dropped. "There was fifteen hundred and change in that bag when you left," he intoned.

"Well, there ain't anything close to that amount in there now. But we got the right blood, and that's all that matters," she added forcefully, seeing a war rising in Mal's eyes as he considered the fact that most of their pay was gone. _Starting to look a bit less generous than you were the last time we spoke, captain. Ain't gonna let you be less than charitable about this, not when you owe him your life._

He breathed a long sigh, accepting the truth in her words. "Right. Well, I guess you'd best get it where it needs to be, then." He tried to use his captain's voice, but it sounded pinched to his ears. _Our whole pay, gone. _He tried to ignore the slightly cross look Zoe shot him as she tossed what was left of the money in his direction on her way out of the cargo bay. _Gonna have to get one hell of a good job next time if we want to keep flying. _When he was alone again, Mal stalked over to the mule trailer and stood staring for a long moment before his foot lashed out at it angrily. "Fifteen hundred. _Cao!"_

"Captain?" Shepherd Book's voice sounded behind him, a note of concern tinging his words. "Is something wrong?"

"You're damn straight something's wrong. Our whole gorram pay is gone." Sitting down with a heavy thump, he considered the floor. "Some _shi dan _in town charged them almost fifteen hundred for three bottles of blood," he said slowly, his knuckles whitening as his knitted fingers tightened on themselves.

"Fifteen...fifteen _hundred_?" _Good Lord. That was the price __after__ Zoe talked the seller down, no doubt, and I'm sure she had to fight to get the rate she did. I can't help but wonder what the starting price was. Either way, to charge so much when it was likely made clear that Jayne's life was on the line...that's completely unconscionable. _"Well," he finally replied, "at least they managed to find the right type. I was afraid that it wouldn't be available this far out."

"Yeah, and what're we gonna do if it ain't enough? What if we give him that fifteen hundred worth of blood and it doesn't do him a damn bit of good?" He shot to his feet and began to pace again, each footfall echoing off the walls. "It's not like we can just take it back and ask for a refund if it doesn't work, you know."

_Lord, let it work. _"All we can do is wait," he tried to counsel the steaming man in front of him. "There's no point in getting worked up about this until we have a better idea of what's going to happen."

"I hate this waiting _go se._"

Book felt a tiny laugh escape him before he could stop it. Mal froze, turning to stare at him, obviously completely misreading his reaction. "I'm sorry, captain, but...well, I'm afraid you sounded an awful lot like Jayne for a moment, and it just struck me as amusing." Seeing the other man's eyes dart momentarily in the direction of the infirmary as a cloud passed over his face, he tempered his momentary delight. "Would you like to talk about what happened?" he asked, completely serious. _I can't imagine what he's feeling right now, knowing that he hasn't been very accepting of the person who risked his own life to save him. Guilt is an emotion that I've never imagined Malcolm Reynolds to be very familiar with, and it seems that he's not enjoying it very much right now._

"Tried that. 'Nara had me calmed down for a little bit, but...I can't believe this. All that coin, and it might not do a damn bit of good."

"You feel helpless," Book suggested. When Mal just grunted and looked away, he went on. "No one likes that feeling, you know. Unfortunately, it's part of life. To be quite honest, I'm not enjoying the uncertainty of this situation any more than you are. But all we can do is wait it out."

"Ain't got nothing to do in the mean time," the younger of the two complained. "Just sittin' here twiddling my thumbs and going crazy with not knowing whether or not this has all been a waste."

Stepping forward, the Shepherd leaned conspiratorially close. "Your efforts have _not _been a waste of time, Malcolm." The captain's head rose at the sound of his given name in a voice unused to speaking it, and he inclined his head, curious for the preacher's next words. "Even if they feel so to you, trust me when I tell you that to the part of Jayne that knows what's going on-and I promise you, there is a part of him that is aware that everything humanly possible is being done for him-appreciates every tiny gesture that has been made today. Even if he never says so, if he recovers he'll know that part of the credit for his survival is yours."

"Sounds an awful lot like you're talking about souls and such, there, Book. You know I don't really..."

"I know that," he cut him off. "But it doesn't require a belief in souls to acknowledge that Jayne Cobb is not an imbecile. One of his greatest talents is observation, and he has watched this crew long enough that I cannot doubt that he is fully aware that there is no circumstance in which you would willingly let a debt of yours go unpaid." Smiling at the suddenly guarded look on the captain's face, Book pulled away. "And if you're looking for something to do..." He gestured towards the front of the trailer where, somehow, a very familiar weapon had been left in the midst of the morning's hubbub. "I'm sure Jayne would appreciate it greatly if someone were to put that away for him, seeing as how he can't care for her himself right now." With that suggestion, he turned away, tracing Zoe and Simon's steps towards the infirmary. "Good afternoon, captain," he called back before he began humming mildly under his breath in time with his footfalls.

"Huh." _How did I miss Vera sitting up there while we were cleaning? You'd think a gun that size would be plainly visible to a blind man. Reckon Book's right; Jayne's going to be pissed if I just leave her out here in the cargo bay._ Hefting the heavy piece into his arms, he had to admit that there was something special about it. Mal was generally not a proponent of firearms he considered oversize, since smaller ones could cause just as effective of a hole with a lot less of a mess to clean up, but holding his mercenary's personal favorite softened his opinion of them somewhat. _Makes ya feel like no one can touch you. No wonder he likes this thing so much. Still...awful impractical, unless you're just trying to scare people. Which is Jayne's job, _he went on, following the chain of logic. _I guess Vera makes more sense than I thought, after all. Least when Jayne's holding her._ "Well. Awful glad someone noticed that. Hate to think what he'd do if she was left here overnight and he found out about it." _Probably threaten to shoot me._ He snorted with mirth, able to perfectly envision how such an exchange would go. _Who'd have thought that he'd take as good a care of us as he does his guns? _He thought as his fingers glided easily over the meticulously oiled metal. _Although I suppose he did pick a mighty convenient time to show it... _"Ruttin' Jayne," he muttered, a trace of admiration in his voice as he moved towards the crew quarters. "You been watchin' as hard as Book says you have, you ought to know I hate surprises."


	21. Tea and Empathy

"Zoe?" Simon asked when they were out of the cargo bay.

She stopped, turning back to face him in the narrow hall. "What is it?"

"I..." The surgeon looked down at his feet, color flooding his face. "I wanted to apologize for earlier. For this morning."

Her haste to get the blood to the infirmary was curbed by his unexpected words. "Surprised to hear you say that," she answered finally.

"Well..." He shook his head. "It was that man back in town. He said he was a doctor, but he still charged us outrageously for something he knew we needed desperately. What's worse is that he appears to be using the townspeople for his own personal gain. I can't...I don't want to be seen as someone who might do the same thing. As someone who has no respect for the promises they make, or for the lives of others. That's an intolerable trait in anyone, and even more so in a physician. I don't know why I acted the way I did this morning, but I know what the consequences could be, and you can't imagine how guilty my role in this entire episode has made me feel. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am in the hopes that you will accept my apology."

The second in command stared at him for a moment. "This ain't about you, Simon."

"I'm sorry? I don't understand," he replied, confusion showing under his bruises.

"You just told me that you're apologizing because you feel guilty. You ain't saying you're sorry on account of Jayne being worse off than he would be if you'd done your job right from the beginning, you're saying it because you don't want anyone thinking poorly of you for doing what you did. Only thing that's gonna make me think any different of you than I do right now is for you to prove what you're saying." Scowling, she began to move towards the infirmary again, then paused. "Besides," she added, "I ain't the one you ought to be apologizing to."

_Is she suggesting that I apologize to Jayne for this? _He wondered as she walked away. _There is no way I could do that. He would flatten me, and for once I don't think anyone would try to stop him. _Remembering the look on his sister's face as she'd appeared to tease him with her repetition of the Hippocratic Oath, he shuddered. _River probably wouldn't even intervene, at least not before he got a few solid blows in. After all, she heard me tell him he was safe under my care, and she was in the infirmary earlier when I broke that promise. How must the rest of the crew view me? Kaylee...Jayne is her friend, as little as I like that fact. I haven't a clue how I'm going to make this up to her, especially. I don't know that strawberries will be enough... _At the thought of food, his empty stomach growled. Knowing that the dining area would probably be empty in the middle of the afternoon, he turned in that direction, deciding that if nothing else eating might help him come up with a way to soothe Kaylee's anger.

Drawing near to his destination, he heard someone moving around and nearly turned back. A polite cough alerted him to the fact that he, too, had been heard, and since walking away would be completely cowardly, he steeled himself and entered the dining room to find Inara seated at the table.

"Simon. Do come in, please," she invited, staring contemplatively into the dark tea she held in both of her slim hands. "Would you care for a drink? There is plenty left."

"Thank you," the doctor replied gratefully. _Maybe no one has mentioned anything to the others, _he hoped. _Perhaps I can have a normal conversation with Inara and get my head straight. Civility is very good for that, after all, and there is very little of it on this ship. Particularly today,_ he added, fingering his nose gently as he poured a cup from the steaming pot and seated himself.

"I was hoping to speak to you," the Companion addressed him once he'd had time to take a few sips.

"I am very much in need of some civilized discourse, Inara. I would appreciate it if we could engage in some."

"Oh, I suppose that might be possible, provided that we take care of some business first. You don't mind?" she queried, finally looking up at him. It took a fair amount of effort for her to hide her reaction to Simon's swollen features, but she managed. _So Mal has taken to beating his crew, _she thought with a note of sarcasm. _Mind, Simon certainly deserved it-at least I suppose he did, as much as anyone deserves to be hit-but something tells me I should be at least a little bit upset with Mal for acting on such an impulse. _The defensive look on Kaylee's face as she'd cradled the injured mercenary's head flashed behind her eyes. _Well...maybe not. Perhaps I ought to just...I don't know, kiss him for doing something so brutal, rather than slapping him. The violence has to stop somewhere, after all._

"Ah...all right. Business before pleasure, then." _What kind of business could Inara possible have with me?_

"I wanted to talk about Jayne. Sugar?" she asked, passing the bowl down the table to where Simon accepted it graciously. "How is he doing?"

"I honestly...don't know." As her eyebrow arched, he stuttered onward, trying to cover up the ineptitude his statement suggested. "The wound was bad, and we only just got him the right blood, but on the other hand he's very stubborn, so...I really can't say what his chances are, I'm afraid."

_They got the blood, thank goodness. _Hearing that Zoe's quest had been successful, her stress eased somewhat. _Once he's had some, I'm sure everything will be just fine. It was just the blood, really, that seemed to be the problem. _That didn't mean that she couldn't still take the issue up with Simon, however. "I see. Well, I expect that you did everything in your power to help him, of course. You wouldn't do any less." When his eyes stayed riveted to his cup, she continued. "Would you, Simon?"

"Of course not," he managed, trying to smile reassuringly. "Naturally I did everything I could manage."

"Even though you don't particularly like him." She stirred her cooling beverage disinterestedly as she spoke.

"We have our differences, but that's no reason for me to-" He jumped when she slammed her spoon down on the table, spattering him with tea.

"To what?" she hissed, his blatant lying enraging her. "To try and kill him?" She found her anger a little frightening until she reminded herself of Zoe's exact words that morning. _'Simon would have just let him bleed out. Jayne saved the captain's life, and he would have just let him die if we hadn't been watching.' _

"Inara," he said helplessly, mortified that she knew what he had done. "I just...Inara, I couldn't help it!" he blurted finally.

"You couldn't helpit?" she sputtered back. "He saved Mal's _life_, Simon. Don't you think that's worth you pushing aside your dislike, at least for long enough to keep him alive?"

_Wait...he did what? _"Saved...Mal's life? What...what are you talking about?"

Inara sat back in her chair, staring at him. "You don't know," she realized suddenly. "No one told you how he was hurt?"

"I assumed it was a standard gunfight wound. Mal and Zoe have been acting oddly-I've certainly never seen them so upset about him being injured before-but Jayne's never been quite so close to death since I've been here, so it seemed possible that they were reacting normally for the situation. He really...saved the captain's life?" _I cannot even begin to fathom this. It's no wonder that Zoe wouldn't just take me at my word when I tried to apologize._

"Yes, he did." Inara related to Simon what Zoe had told her and Wash at breakfast, her ire decreasing as the doctor's expression grew more and more horrified.

"If I had known..." he breathed when she was finished.

"Would it really have changed anything?" She looked him straight in the eye as she asked the question. "I would dearly love to think that it would have, but I also want to know the truth, if it is different from what I hope to be the case."

_I don't know that it would have been any different,_ he had to admit to himself. _I can't explain what happened out there, what made me do what I did. _"Under normal circumstances, Inara, I would never, ever break my Hippocratic Oath. I do not know why I acted so poorly, so unlike myself, this morning, but I did. That is something that I have to live with, and something that I must manage to control from now on. I could never have imagined that I would behave as I have today; now that I am aware of a contradictory part of myself, I imagine it will be easier to rein in in the future, should he fall under my care again." He swallowed heavily, the weight of her gaze fully on him. "You cannot imagine how terrible I feel about this. I just hope that the rest of the crew will accept my sincere apologies, and recognize my attempts to perform more admirably from here on."

_He does seem repentant,_ she allowed. "I'm sure they will, Simon. Just...give them some time. I never would have imagined you as a killer before, and I do not like the idea of labeling you as such because of one mistake, which you are clearly sorry to have made. I cannot promise that the others will be so forgiving, Zoe and Mal in particular. The two of them and Jayne are of a like kind in some very important ways, and I believe that what occurred this morning forged bonds between the three of them that it would take something of monumental force to injure. As for the others...Book tends to be forgiving of most things, so long as you are truly sorry, which I think you are, and Wash will forgive you most of the way provided that Jayne lives and you promise not to do anything like that again. Kaylee..." she trailed off, knowing that the news about Kaylee was going to be painful to the man across from her.

"Kaylee. I was hoping...do you think you can help me with her, Inara? I just don't know how to make this up to her. The two of them are close-too close, in my opinion-and I know she's very upset about what she saw this morning. Do you have any suggestions of how I might be able to placate her?"

She was silent for a long moment. _Oh, Simon, I hate to be the one to show you this, but you will find out sooner or later in any case. _"There's something you need to see," she told him slowly.

The softly pitying look on her face put him on edge. "What is it?"

"It's about Kaylee. And...and Jayne."

His eyes narrowed. "I don't understand, Inara."

_Please, please take this better than I think you will. _She stood up, beckoning for him to follow her out of the dining room. "I believe this is something you have to see for yourself. But Simon?" She faced him resolutely, imagining what kind of reaction the doctor might have when he saw Kaylee curled so sweetly around the man whom she had brazenly announced earlier she was in love with. "Do not, under any circumstances, try to do anything silly."_ Like killing Jayne for stealing your girlfriend. _She forced a smile onto her lips. _"_All right?"

"Ah...all right," Simon agreed, puzzled as he let her lead him towards the infirmary. _What could she possibly be worried about me doing? _

River appeared beside him suddenly, looping her arm through his and tilting her head back to gaze up at him, clearly amused.

"_Meimei_, where have you been?"

She blinked. "Burned butterflies still have to fly, if they want to live." He clamped down on her arm with one hand, knowing that her cryptic one-liners often ended with her skipping away, just out of his reach, and unwilling to let her get away again today. She pouted slightly as his attempt to control her. "Don't worry," she instructed. "Girl wants to see the fun."

_Fun? Lovely._


	22. Stupefy

Kaylee opened her eyes slowly, wincing against the light, as Zoe stepped into the infirmary. "Zoe?" she ventured slowly, her head still muzzy from sleep.

"Just me," the second-in-command responded, opening the room's small cooler and placing two of the bottles she had carefully packed back from town inside. "You get some rest?"

"A little. Smoothers wore off a bit ago, so I had ta give him more. I was worried he'd pull his stitches." She smiled sadly down at the unconscious figure beside her, reaching out to pull the blanket they'd been sharing up over his shoulders. When she saw that there was more than one, she frowned slightly. "Was it you that put this second one on us?"

"No. Might have been Inara, she was down here just before I headed to town."

"Town? Did ya get the blood?" Excited, she hopped down off of the bed and moved to Zoe's side, watching impatiently as the bottle was prepared.

"It's right here." _Ain't no point in telling her what it cost, or about those poor folks it was probably stolen from. She's got enough on her mind right now. Don't know what I'd be doing or thinking if it was Wash lyin' there like that._ "About time he got some more of the real stuff."

"Plasma's not hardly doing anything." The slight mechanic's voice dropped, her wide, worried eyes turning up to meet the soldier's. "He's awful cold, Zoe," she confided, her lower lip trembling slightly. "I kept waking up, just to check on him. Can't stand much more of this, I don't think."

Zoe wasn't sure whether Kaylee meant that Jayne couldn't stand much more time without replacement blood or that she herself couldn't stand the stress of waiting for him to either start getting better or give up the ghost. Glancing covertly over the shorter woman's head at the vital monitors, she bit back the grimace that wanted to twist onto her mouth. _75 over 40? _she thought amazedly as her eyes skipped over the blood pressure screen. _That doesn't even hardly qualify as life in most hospitals. Got to get this blood in him._ "C'mon, honey," she said, gripping Kaylee's arm in one hand and guiding her back to the bed. "Let's get this going."

"Can I help?"

"Here." Pulling Jayne's arm out from beneath the covers-_gorram, his fingers are freezing-_she placed the other woman's hands over his firmly. "Keep him from twitching too much while I try to get this in. You know how he hates needles, wouldn't surprise me if he tried to pull away."

"'Kay." She cradled his hand in both of her own, running one fingertip over the lines of his palm as the line dripping plasma into his motionless body was removed.

_Quit being difficult, Jayne,_ Zoe swore silently after several minutes of trying in vain to insert the new feed. She didn't want to have to fish around, but it was proving obscenely difficult to find a vessel that was visible enough for her to aim for and not so flaccid that the needle went straight through. _At least he's pale enough that I can see as soon as I poke out the other side. Bruises are clear as day._

"What's wrong, Zoe?" _Don't usually take this long to put in a needle._

"Can't get a vein," she muttered. "I think they've collapsed, that's why. He's normally easy to get a needle into, at least once you've gotten him doped up so he doesn't know you're trying to stick him." A brief smile flickered over her face as she recalled the first time she'd ever had to use a needle on the forthright mercenary, back when Serenity's crew had been a fair bit smaller. _Never heard a man complain so much about a tiny little pinprick._

"That ain't good, is it?"

_Ain't gonna lie to ya, _she decided, the memory wiped away by the feverish tone of Kaylee's question. "No. But it ain't necessarily bad, either. It's just a survival mechanism; most of the blood pulls back to keep the organs running, and the blood vessels in the limbs kinda deflate. They'll come back up just as soon as he's had some blood, real blood."

"You know somethin', Zoe? You explained that better than Simon could, I'll bet. He'd use a bunch of fancy words that no one but him understands, but you said it right out. Makes perfect sense the way you said it."

"Well, I reckon we did all right before Simon ever came along. We all lived to meet him, at least."

"...Yeah." She sighed, gently massaging Jayne's wrist and forearm as she stewed silently.

"Something wrong?" Zoe asked her as a new bruise blossomed beneath her fingers. _Go se, again? _she groaned mentally.

"Simon ain't gonna understand none of this. He-" A flash of movement outside caught her attention. "Oh, _shen me niao__1_..."

Looking up briefly, the taller woman saw the cause of Kaylee's swearing as Simon came into view, following closely behind a nervous-looking Inara. As they stepped into the room, she went back to concentrating on her task, trying to ignore the surgeon's presence. _You make her start crying again, you _nao zhong...

"Kaylee? What are you...have you been down here since this morning?" Simon asked, his mouth turning downward petulantly.

"Ain't none of your business where I've been." Seeing the state of his face, she softened her attitude towards him even as her hand clutched at Jayne's more securely. "Been keepin' an eye on him."

"It isn't healthy for you to stay cooped up down here all day." _Why were you down here with __him__? The others could have taken a turn watching._ Knowing that a lecture would do nothing to help his position, he swallowed and tried a different tack. "Listen, Kaylee, why don't we step outside and get some fresh air? I know I could use some, and surely after all afternoon you're ready for-"

"Simon," she cut him off suddenly, her voice sharp. "Simon, I ain't leavin' this room until he wakes up."

_What? Why not? "_Inara, you'll stay here for a little while, won't you? He won't be alone, Kaylee, you can take a break. He'll be fine."

_How would you know? You ain't been by here all day, you've got no idea how he is._ "I ain't leavin'," she repeated quietly.

"Ah-ha," Zoe huzzahed quietly, straightening as she finally managed to slip the needle into a vein without shoving the sharp tip all the way through. As she sized up the situation between Kaylee and Simon, she noticed River sitting silently in the shadows beyond the doorway, her arms wrapped around her knees as she watched the proceedings, a fascinated look gracing her features. _Seems like she shows up whenever there's a lot of emotions flying around. Kinda funny how she always turns out for that._

Hearing Zoe's low-volume whoop of success, Simon tried to use it to his advantage. "There, now that Jayne is getting blood instead of plasma, surely you can come upstairs for a moment..." He tried to indicate in his tone that he wanted to speak with her privately, but her expression never budged. _Am I being unclear? _he wondered. _I can't be much more obvious than I am._

"You got somethin' to say, Simon, you can say it right here," Kaylee shrugged at him, turning slightly away and towards the bed. "Or you can wait til I'm ready to leave."

"When will that be?" he asked avidly, leaning forward.

Another shrug. "Dunno. After he wakes up, and I get a chance to talk to him. Got some things I want ta say to him."

_What could possibly be so important for you to tell him that you can't step out for a few minutes?_ Puzzled, he studied the scene with greater care, disbelief growing in him as he registered elements he had missed before. _Your clothes are wrinkled. You have sleep in your eyes. Where were you sleeping, if you didn't leave? _His eyes narrowed. _There are two blankets on the bed. They're both over Jayne now, but they weren't earlier, were they? You were under one, up there, with him. You're holding his hand. You're ignoring me, Kaylee. Why are you ignoring me?_ "Kaylee?"

"Hmm?" She turned back to him, and her gaze held none of the starry-eyed wonder he had grown use to seeing in them when she looked at him. _No. There is no way that you...that I...I must be able to salvage this, somehow._

"I am sorry about this morning," he began. "Please, Kaylee, _baobei,_ you must believe me when I say that. I truly and deeply regret my actions earlier today, and I assure you that they will not be repeated. Tell me, what can I do to make you see that? What...what must I do to win a smile? How can I make you happy with me again?"

She blinked at him. "Don't call me that," she said finally. "Ever."

He startled backwards a half step at the flatness of her words. "What don't you want me to call you, _baobei_?"

"_That,_" she spat back. "I ain't your sweetheart, I ain't your honey. I never was. Wanted to be, true enough, but I never was. Not to you. You ain't never called me that til now, Simon, and now's too late. I ain't yours any more, and I won't never be again. Not when there's someone who's been loving me for too long already, someone who _deserves_ my attention." Her eyes slid meaningfully from Simon to Jayne, the direction of her gaze indicating the transferral of her affections from one man to the other.

Simon stood, stunned, for several seconds, during which Inara bit her lip out of commiseration with him even as she shared a glance with Zoe, both women proud to see Kaylee standing up for herself. "Are you saying that you are no longer interested in pursuing anything romantic with me?" the doctor asked slowly, trying to comprehend what he had just heard.

"Yep."

"You...you're breaking up with me?" _Although it's not as if we were ever technically a couple. You can't blame me for wanting to take things slowly._

River giggled wildly in the background, her eyes shining in the dusky hall. _Silly Simon._

"Reckon so."

He closed his eyes, trying to center himself. _This cannot be happening. This is a dream. Surely this is all just a horrible dream. _"Are you telling me that you are leaving me...for _Jayne_?"

She gave him an annoyed look. "Ya know Simon, for bein' a doctor you can be pretty dumb sometimes." As his mouth dropped open in shock, she went on more gently. "I don't want to hurt ya," she said frankly. "But it just ain't gonna work with us. It's more than just what happened today, it's a whole bunch of things that have been buildin' up for a long time, things that happened before you ever set foot on Serenity. I still like ya, same as I like everyone on this boat. You're still my friend, least I hope ya will be again eventually. But Jayne's somethin' more than that. I never had a best friend before, least not til I met him, and now I'm startin' to see what it might be like to have ta live without him, and I hate it. Only way I can fight it is to spend every moment I've got left makin' him know how much I love him. It ain't that I care for you any less than I did before, it's just that I care for him a whole lot more, more than anybody I've ever known. Ain't no power in the Verse can stop me from lovin' him, not death, not the captain, and not you. So ya might as well not spend any of your time tryin', cause it'd just be wasted effort," she finished quietly.

"But I...you...I thought...we were..." he whispered desperately.

She laughed slightly, shaking her head. "We weren't, Simon. I wanted you to love me, but you didn't. You just loved bein' loved, and trust me, there's plenty others out there that can make ya feel that way. But there ain't no one in the Verse can make me feel the way he does. I was useful ta you; I'm necessary ta him."

"How can you know that?" he argued. "You haven't even told him yet. For all you know he'll just laugh in your face, and then where will you be?"

"Simon!" Inara gasped. "There was absolutely no call for that!"

"I see it now, that's all," Kaylee explained, her reaction much calmer than the Companion's. "He's loved me all along, and he's been pretty terrible at hidin' it, but I just didn't see it for what it was. I look back now, and I know every thing he's done out of his love for me, even if he didn't know himself what he was doin' or why. I did things different with him for the same reason." _For one thing, I didn't just tumble into bed with him right off. I know I musta wanted to, him bein' so _swai_, but I didn't. I coulda, I know it, but I held back. Must have known he was worth waitin' on, same as he knew about me._ "He ain't gonna laugh. But I sure can't wait to see what the look on his face _will _be."

As this new reality slowly settled down around him, Simon felt like he was choking. _When did this happen? I was right here, and she just...slipped out of my fingers. I lost her to Jayne, of all people. To the damnable man-ape. How is that even conceivable? _"I think it's best if I just...return to my quarters for a little while. Perhaps we can, uh, discuss this later." Still looking shell-shocked, he backed out of the room, glancing nervously between the three women as he went. He controlled his pace until he was certain he was out of sight of the infirmary, then fled the rest of the way to his room. _This must just be a terrible nightmare. No sane woman leaves a skilled surgeon for...__Jayne__, or any of his ilk. Surely she will come around and realize her mistake. Surely. _Dazed, he slid his door shut firmly and collapsed onto his bed, repeating the same few thoughts over and over until nothing else seemed possible.

Once he had left, Inara moved to the slightly shaking Kaylee and wrapped her arms around her. "You did so well, _meimei_," she comforted her. "Just give him some time. I am so sorry that I brought him down here without warning you, but I-"

"'Sokay, 'Nara," Kaylee sniffed, pulling away so she could hoist herself up onto the bed again. "He had to find out sooner or later," she temporized, lacing her fingers through Jayne's as she spoke. "Guess this was better than it could have been."

"Here," Zoe contributed simply, offering her a tissue to wipe the few tears on her cheeks. "Don't worry about that _nao zhong_. He ain't worth your tears."

"I know. I just feel so bad about hurtin' his feelings, ya know? Sure hope he gets over it quick. Probably will." Sighing, she let her eyes fall to the unconscious man beside her, a smile slowly curving over her lips as she watched him sleep. A yawn overtook her, unbidden, and she grinned abashedly at the other two women. "Guess I'm still tired. You figure he'll be okay now, Zoe?" she asked anxiously.

"Reckon so long as you're here, he'll be just fine." Her normally guarded eyes grew soft as the mechanic curled back up where she had been sleeping earlier, arranging herself carefully around the unaware mercenary. "Get some sleep, honey. We'll be around if ya need us."

"Sweet dreams," Inara whispered as she followed Zoe out, closing the door most of the way behind her to block some of the light from the hall. Both hesitated when River looked up at them, still smiling over the adolescent display her brother had put on a short time before.

"The butterfly must keep flapping his wings if he wants to remain in this world," she instructed, the seriousness of her voice clashing with her grin.

Inara frowned. "What do you mean? What butterfly?"

Zoe shifted uncomfortably. "You don't think she's talking about Jayne, do you?" she asked.

The Companion shook her head. "I don't know. Who are you talking about, River?"

The girl on the floor looked at them as if they were being foolish. "Jayne is a vertebrate," she explained.

"Huh?" Zoe looked even more confused, but Inara understood enough to allay her fears.

"Jayne is not the butterfly," she said, relieved. "At least I believe that is what she is trying to say. She said Jayne has a spine, which butterflies do not, so-assuming that her logic is somewhat normal-Jayne cannot be the butterfly."

"Oh. All right, then." Shaking the uncertain feeling being near River sometimes gave her, Zoe walked on towards the dining room. _Is Inara coming with me? _She wondered as soft footsteps matched her own._ That's kinda funny. Figured she'd head off to her shuttle, like normal._ "You hungry?" she asked politely, trying to decipher the other woman's motive.

"I thought I might look for Mal," Inara confided after a moment's silence.

"Mmm." Nodding, Zoe grinned over at the Companion knowingly, an unexpected surge of female companionship washing over her. _ About time you finally moved to take what he's been waiting to give you. _Comparing herself to Inara and Kaylee, she realized that the three of them now had something more in common than just being female residents of Serenity._ All three of us know what it is to be madly and completely devoted to our respective men, crazy as they all are. Wonder if I looked as laid out as she does now when I first discovered I was going after Wash without even knowing it. "_Hey, 'Nara?" she asked playfully.

"Yes, Zoe?"

"Ain't it great to be in love?"

1What the fuck.


	23. Waiting

Mal started in surprise when he entered the dining room._ Looks almost like she's waiting for something, sitting there like that_. "Zoe, Book," he greeted before turning to the only other person present. "Wasn't expecting to see you down here, 'Nara," he said in place of a hello.

"Zoe and I were down in the infirmary a short time ago," she explained. "I simply followed her here after Kaylee fell back asleep." _I don't particularly feel like being alone right now, with so much still undecided. And...perhaps I was hoping that you would be here for the evening meal._

"Where's Simon?" Mal asked suspiciously. "Thought he went with you, Zoe, to get the blood started."

Zoe and Inara exchanged a glance before the second in command spoke. "He did, sir, in a roundabout way," she answered, clearing her throat to indicate that there was a story behind her short response.

When Mal just stood at the head of the table looking pensive, Inara filled him in. "I had a little chat with the doctor over tea," she revealed. "I must admit, I was harsher than I originally intended to be with him. After talking things over, however, I believe that he is truly sorry about what he did this morning."

Mal snorted. "I'll believe that when I see it. How'd he end up back downstairs?"

"I led him there," the Companion went on. "He asked my advice on how he could best put himself back in everyone's good graces. He was particularly interested in reconciling with Kaylee." She paused, allowing that piece of information to sink in.

Hearing that Simon had expressed concern over the mechanic's opinion of him, Book turned from where he had been preparing a light supper and joined the conversation. "I don't know that it would be the best thing for them to be together, Inara," he contributed quietly. "I've seen no indication before now that Simon has any true intentions toward her. Jayne, on the other hand, has been waiting in the wings for quite some time, and I don't hesitate to say that I believe he's the worthier candidate." The others turned to look at him, all a little surprised that the normally neutral preacher had voiced such a partisan opinion on this very sensitive issue.

Zoe was the first to grin. _You've been hopin' they'd end up together all along,_ she realized. "How long you been in on this, Shepherd?"

"Jayne has never been anything besides candid with me," he admitted, returning her smile. _A fact which has caused me more than a few nights of worry,_ he added in his head. "It might surprise you to know just how many secrets he's shared," he went on, raising his eyebrows momentarily when Mal caught his eye.

_...Ain't no way in hell Jayne told the preacher about Ariel, _Mal thought wildly. _But I can't think of anything else that might have Book sending a look like that my way. _Puzzled, but not wanting to discuss that particular incident in the presence of the other two, he tried to return to the subject they'd started on. "What'd you tell him? Don't really think Kaylee's in much of a forgiving mood right now when it comes to Simon."

"I agree," Inara acquiesced. "And while I have some reservations about Jayne and Kaylee being together, I have also not always been pleased by Simon's responses to her feelings. I am not as ardent a proponent of this new relationship as Shepherd Book seems to be, but I must say that I have never seen her look quite so certain about anything that did not involve Serenity's mechanical workings as she does when she talks about she and Jayne. I believe that she truly does love him. Knowing that, I advised Simon that Kaylee may now be very much out of his reach." She broke off, her face begging Zoe to continue the story as she realized that Mal might become upset about the fact that she had brought Simon down to the infirmary to show him what was now what.

Catching the signal, the other woman picked up the narrative. "'Nara and the doctor came downstairs while I was getting the blood set up. Bit of a ruckus, but it ended pretty peacefully," she spoke quickly, seeing the captain's face clouding over.

"You telling me Simon didn't try anything?"

"He tried to win her back with some talk, but she didn't buy it. Tripped around sayin' he cared for her, along with some other _go se_."

"Yeah, he's sure been acting like he gives a damn about her," Mal replied caustically. "You there for any of this?" he asked Book.

"No. I glanced briefly into the infirmary on my way here, but Simon wasn't there. I saw that Kaylee and Zoe were talking, and I didn't want to interrupt, so I didn't stop. I got a few things from my quarters before coming up to begin dinner, so I must have just missed you coming back downstairs, Inara."

"You reckon they're safe down there alone?" Mal requested of Zoe. "Have to be pretty loud for us to hear it up here, and then it'd take time to get there, if he was to confront her again."

She shook her head. "He was pretty shaken up. Don't imagine he's in much of a state to do anything but lay in bed and pout right about now. I can go check, though," she offered, moving to stand.

"Don't worry about it, if you think he ain't going to meddle with them."

"I would hate for Kaylee to be woken up again," Inara mused. "She's had so little rest as it is today, especially given how much stress she is carrying."

"Right," Mal agreed. "Ain't no need to bother her, if she's down there sleeping with him." He paused awkwardly as they all realized what he'd just said. Zoe snickered slightly as Inara diverted her eyes to the table, biting back the need to laugh at the captain's obvious vexation even as she blushed slightly out of embarrassment for him. "Uh...how far out is that food, anyway?" he stammered to Book finally, trying to clear an unwanted image out of his head.

"It needs about another thirty minutes, captain," he answered, stirring his pot resolutely as he attempted to keep from sounding amused. "Give or take."

"Well, a half hour ain't hardly enough time to do anything," Mal said, finding himself moving to the empty seat next to Inara without thinking. _What am I doing? She's sure to get up and move away, or go back to her shuttle or something. _Despite his certainty that his gesture would be an unwelcome one, his steps were bold. "Might as well stick close until it's time to get Wash down here." She smiled timidly up at him as he stopped beside the chair, and his knees turned to spaghetti. _Didn't know she could look bashful like that,_ he gulped, lowering himself carefully next to her.

Zoe and Book beamed at each other, both sensing the charged air building up between the captain and the Companion. "You sticking around for supper, 'Nara, or have you got other plans?" Zoe pressed mischievously.

"I...I have no other arrangements. I don't know what you are cooking, Shepherd," she said by way of excuse, "but it smells wonderful. I look forward to finding out how it tastes."

"Shiny," Zoe grinned as she saw a hopeful gleam enter the captain's eyes. "Reckon it's going to be a good meal." _So long as Mal can manage to close his mouth long enough to swallow, that is._


	24. Dead or Alive

"Kaylee? Kaylee, honey?"

"Mmm...huh? Oh...hi, Zoe." She yawned, wiping at her eyes as she sat up slowly. Completely ignoring the plate of food the other woman was attempting to offer to her, she turned immediately to the man she'd pressed herself against in her slumber, peering down at him in close scrutiny. "Turn the lights up some, would ya?" she asked. "Can't hardly see how he is."

"Sure." Setting the dish she carried down on the counter, Zoe stepped back to the doorway and adjusted the dial so that the room gradually brightened to daytime level. Kaylee's dismayed moan caused her head to whip around, a frown on her lips. "What's the matter?" she demanded before her brain caught up with her eyes. _Oh, that isn't good,_ she groaned to herself when she registered what Kaylee had seen first.

"I don't understand," the mechanic cried. "He's had almost two full bottles, and he's lookin' worse than he did before. Zoe..." her despondent voice paused as she met the second in command's apprehensive gaze. "What're we gonna do?"

"I don't know, sweetie," she replied, her tone uncharacteristically nervous. _Can't stand hearing you sound so forlorn, Kaylee, but I don't know what we're going to do. He's gone through two thirds of what we got and it obviously ain't done a damn bit of good. I was hoping he'd be opening his eyes in a while, give us all a chance to relax, but...he ain't going to wake up anytime soon looking like that._ "You just stay here and try to eat something," she ordered, gesturing to the food without taking her eyes off of the man on the bed. "I'll get the captain. We'll figure something out, we ain't just gonna let him die. You just stay with him, and I'll be right back." She slipped out of the room as Kaylee lay back down, scooting close in a futile attempt to convey some of her warmth to the unconscious Jayne as she whispered low words of encouragement.

_Got to get a hold of myself,_ Zoe thought as she took the stairs up to the dining room two at a time. _Calm down, ain't no need to go scaring the rest of them. Just need to talk with Mal, that's all. _"Captain?" she said as calmly as she could manage, putting only her head around the corner so that they couldn't see the way her hands were shaking. "You have a moment?"

He'd known her too long, and in too many bad situations, to not immediately understand that there was a serious problem. "Sure thing," he agreed in a leisurely fashion, like his second in command not wanting to unnecessarily alarm the others still gathered around the table. "Don't remember who's got the clean up tonight, but they might want to think about getting to work on it," he threw back as he turned the corner, hoping they couldn't read the concern in his words. "What's wrong, Zoe?" he asked, dropping his voice as he came face to face with her.

"It's Jayne," she said, her teeth clenched so tightly that Mal would have sworn he could hear them grinding.

His hand shot out and gripped her arm. "He ain't-" he broke off, his face contorting. _Don't you tell me he went and died with little Kaylee curled up next to him. Don't you give me that kind of news, Zoe._

"No," she reassured him, taking a deep breath. Suddenly realizing that there was more sound in the vacuum of space than there was coming from the dining room, she motioned towards the stairs. "We'd best discuss this elsewhere. You'll want to see for yourself, anyway."

They hustled back to the infirmary, Mal cursing mentally the entire way. _Simon's sorry, Inara says. Well, he's going to be real sorry if this is as bad as Zoe seems to think it is. Been a long time since I've seen her this worked up._ As soon as they were out of earshot of the dining room, he stopped her. "Wait a minute. Tell me what I'm fixing to see, before I see it."

Heaving a deep sigh, she leaned against the wall, feeling drained. "I took Kaylee down a plate from dinner, seeing as how she ain't hardly eaten today and she refuses to leave his side for anything. Soon as I woke her up she wanted to check on him. I don't even think she noticed the food, she was too concerned with whether or not he was doing all right. She asked me to turn the lights up, since we turned them down when we left her sleepin' before. I didn't even turn them up when I set up a new bottle just before we ate. Didn't want to disturb her, you know? I didn't know there was anything wrong until I heard her gasp."

"Is he alive?" Mal asked shakily, disturbed by the look in the woman before him's eyes.

"Depends on your opinion of alive, sir. All I know is that those two bottles of blood he's had since we got back don't seem to have done anything for him."

_Ruttin' hell. _ His stomach twisted itself into nausea as he remembered his words to Book earlier. _'What if it ain't enough?'_ The Shepherd hadn't had an answer for him then, and now he still had no idea what was to be done. _Best see him, maybe that'll kick my brain into gear._ Pushing past Zoe, he half-ran the rest of the short distance to the infirmary, stopping only when he stood in the doorway. "_Ye su_," he whispered, his fingers gripping the door frame tightly.

"Please, _baobei,_ please, please don't do this, I'm beggin' ya, Jayne, please..."

He squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, concentrating until he could block out Kaylee's anguished susurrations. _Can't think with her sounding so heartbroken. _Opening his eyes wasn't any better, he discovered, because then he could see her leaning over him, her tangled hair falling out of her ponytail as she pleaded half-hysterically, her tears falling to soak the pillow. Tearing his attention from her and placing it on Jayne also failed to improve matters. _Skin's so pale it's practically gray. His eyes even look kinda sunk in, like-_ he gulped at the next words -_like he's already dead. _A quick glance at the vital monitors assured him that it wasn't quite to that point yet, but the numbers he read there were so terrible that it really wasn't much of a consolation.

Zoe almost flinched back from the haunted look on his face when he turned back to her._ Ain't seen him look that bad in a long time. Then again, I probably ain't looking my best right now, either. _"Captain?" she asked, unconsciously snapping to attention.

"Get Simon down here right now. If he isn't in his bunk, get on the comm box and make sure there ain't a corner on this ship where he can't hear himself being called." _Wish this was something you could take care of, Zoe, but the look on your face tells me right off that you haven't got any more of a clue what's going on than I do, and Jayne hasn't got time for us to play doctor._

Without so much as a nod of assent, she wheeled away, racing towards the surgeon's quarters. Mal leaned bonelessly against the frame, trying to formulate a plan as Kaylee's sobs wracked his ears. _Do whatever Simon says is necessary to get him stable. Then, get him more blood._ He winced at the thought that they might never make it to that step. _We're going to have to have another talk with that town doctor that robbed them earlier. I'll hold the _hun dan _up if I have to, but we're getting that blood. Ain't taking no for an answer. _Closing his eyes and resting his head against his arm, he tried to fight the pounding migraine that was manifesting itself at the back of his skull. _Wish 'Nara was down here. Maybe she could make me believe it's all going to turn out right again, like she did earlier. _

As a thin howl escaped the bawling mechanic on the bed, he amended his wish. _Least maybe she could get Kaylee to calm down some. Hearing her cry can't be doing him any good, if he's hearing anything at all. If it was me in bed and Inara was the one blubbering, I know I wouldn't be too happy about it._ The last thought stopped him short, letting waves of guilt lap at his conscience. _Almost was me on that bed. Should have been me on that bed. Would have been 'Nara losing her head right now. _He shook his head violently, horribly frustrated with waiting but knowing, as Shepherd Book had said, that there was really nothing else he could do at the moment. _Gorram it, Jayne, I appreciate you saving my life, but couldn't you have done it in a way that wouldn't have made Kaylee cry? Not that that part was your idea, but she sounds like her whole life is ending. _He pursed his lips as she hiccuped briefly, then continued to weep. _I guess to her, it seems like it is. Never knew the term 'irreplaceable' could be applied to a merc, least not til today. Don't you go making me try to do the impossible. _He lifted his head to glare angrily toward the bed. _You're the fighter, Jayne, more than any of us. So get off your lazy _pe gu _and fight, already. Reckon that little girl sitting next to you's cried more than enough for one lifetime, and that's just counting today._


	25. Crisis Control

"Simon!" Zoe shouted as she sped down the hall lined by mostly-empty passenger dorms. Skipping the formality of knocking, she tore his door open and stomped into the room, glaring around until she spotted him on the bed.

"Zoe, what-" he began, sitting up in alarm just before he was yanked towards the corridor by the strong hand that wrapped around his neck. Craning his head to study the harsh look on her face, he felt himself go cold. _They're going to kill me,_ he panicked. _Jayne's ended up dead after all, and now Zoe and Mal are going to beat me into the ground. Considering how my luck has been running today, Kaylee will probably join in. Kaylee...how could you be so stupid? I can give you a life, a home, someday when the Alliance isn't interested in River and I anymore. What can he give you? The best he could possibly offer you is a rundown farm on a backwater planet filled with people who are all related to one another and say 'howdy, y'all' rather than using proper greetings. More likely than not he'll never be able to provide you with any sort of security. You'll be dragged from place to place for the rest of your days, bearing him a herd of hulking idiot children, expected to raise them on very little or no money, and with no consolations in your life other than the machinery of whatever ship you happen to be on at any given time. _He paused. _Why do I suspect that the latter proposal is a mode of life you would find yourself relishing?_

He stumbled as Zoe shoved him into the infirmary ahead of her, having dragged him halfway across the ship during the course of his internal diatribe. Mal grabbed his arm before he could topple forward, picking up where the second in command had left off by yanking him up to the table. "You best figure out what in hell's wrong with him quick," the captain growled next to his ear.

_What impetus can he possibly imagine I have to do that? This man has made me break my most sacred oath and has stolen the woman I was very possibly considering that I might someday pursue, all in the same day. _Even as one side of his consciousness laughed at Mal's order, the other fretted over his patient's obviously deteriorated condition. _It appears that he's near the end of a second bottle of blood, but there has clearly been no improvement...Internal hemorrhaging? That would make sense. I sutured the severed artery securely, though. Still, there is no other reasonable explanation I can come up with for why he appears to be dying of blood loss when he's been receiving that very substance._

When the surgeon hesitated, Mal decided he'd had enough. "Listen to me, and you best listen close," he instructed, practically snarling. "You might not think you've got much of a reason to be working on Jayne right now, seeing as how you and him have never been the best of friends. I figure you might be feeling a bit put out by Kaylee's change of heart earlier today, too. Well, I'm going to tell you something; none of that matters. You're _going _to figure out what's wrong, and you're _going _to fix it, for two reasons. First, you're a doctor, and that's what your filthy rich parents spent so much money gettin' trained into you, was helping people who needed it. Second, you're a fugitive from the law who, out of the kindness of my heart, I've allowed to stay on my ship up to this point. Now, you've got a valuable member of my crew on the table in front of you. Time was when I was starting to think of you with that same term, valuable. If you want me to keep thinking about you with that definition-and more importantly, if you want me to keep you and your sister on this ship-you'll do your job, and you'll do it quick, and you'll do it right. _Dong ma?_"

Simon gaped at him. _Would he really throw us off of the ship? _he wondered. Remembering the terrain he had traveled with Zoe on the way into town, his concern took a new turn. _Would he really throw us off of the ship __here__, in the middle of absolutely no where?_ _How would we survive? The town already has a doctor, and I am certainly not going to work for him._ Taking a deep breath, the surgeon closed his eyes and silenced the part of him that wanted to just turn and walk away, the part of him that wasn't interested in any aspect of life as it was outside of the Core, the part of him that hated everything it had seen since the day he had ignored his father and gone after River. _I cannot live on this seedy little dump of a world. This ship is far from ideal, but at least from here I can try to find someplace suitable for River and I to wait out the Alliance. I have to keep us on this ship._ Decision firmly in hand, he addressed Kaylee.

"I need you to move off of the bed."

"But-"

"I'm going to have to reopen the wound," he explained as he moved to the drawer where he kept prepared surgical trays at the ready. "I can do that much more easily if you aren't on the bed. I may need to move around the table, and then you will be in the way. Once I've gone back in I'm going to have to work very quickly."

"He's bleeding out, and you're going to cut him open?" Mal protested.

"Do you see any blood?" Simon countered, his voice nearly as sharp as the sound of his gloves snapping against his wrists. "He's bleeding internally. If I can get in there fast enough and re-suture the vessel that was damaged by the bullet, I might still be able to save him."

"Re-suture?" Zoe asked, her eyes narrowing. "Any particular reason you didn't do it right the first time?"

"I assure you," he said defensively as he removed the bandages and considered the neat stitches he had laid down only hours earlier, "that the vessel was not leaking when I finished operating the first time. However, he's been given two full bottles of blood over the past few hours. The transfusion raised his blood pressure, which in turn put additional stress on the suture line. With enough extra pressure, the vessel would have begun to hemorrhage, possibly even springing a few stitches, which is why he is doing so poorly. It's my guess that I'm going to find not only a large aperture at the point of arterial severance, but also that much of the blood he's received up to this time has been pooling in and around his organs, causing him to go more deeply into shock. That's what is causing his coloring to be so poor." He glanced around at three slightly bewildered looking faces and sighed. _ Oh, how I miss operating theatres, _he lamented to himself, _where everyone in attendance knew what you meant when you said there was an 'aperture at the point of arterial severance.' _"Any questions?" he asked impatiently.

"Just do it," Mal ordered after a brief silence. "Don't waste your time trying to explain it. While he's working," he went on, turning to Zoe, "we're going to pay the local physician a visit."

"He ain't exactly the friendliest person I've ever met, except when he's being over-friendly," she counseled. "Got plenty of the right type of blood, though. We saw that. We robbing him, or are we going to try something else?"

"Whatever it takes." _Only problem is, I don't much like the idea of leaving Simon here more or less alone with Jayne. Kaylee's too shook up to really be able to watch him work, and she wouldn't know what she was looking for anyway._ Catching Zoe's eye, he knew she was suffering from the same indecision. _Can't just be one of us going, though. Going to be hard enough with just me and her, if it comes down to shooting._

"Excuse me, captain?"

Book's voice from the doorway caused Mal to whirl around, a near smile on his face as his answer entered the room._ "_Damn good timing," he said. _Wonder if you're something-more-than-a-preacher enough to stand guard and make sure Tam doesn't try to do him in when no one's watching. _"You reckon you can play nurse for Simon while Zoe and I attend to some business in town?"

"I didn't ask for assistance, captain," the surgeon contributed testily. "I'm perfectly capable of handling this."

"Yeah, well, extra hands never hurt no one. Shepherd?"

"Of course. I will be more than happy to lend a hand, should the doctor find he needs one. Until that time comes, I'll just stand with Kaylee and watch." As he stepped towards the silently shaking mechanic, he threw a stealthy wink to Mal and Zoe. _The captain wouldn't be leaving right now unless it was very important, and I don't blame him for not trusting Simon, particularly since he's now operating again. I only hope that the doctor has examined his own soul and will do the right thing, and that my services will not be needed. _Examining the patient as he slipped his arm gently around Kaylee's shuddering shoulders, he barely repressed a shiver of his own. _Good Lord, he looks terrible,_ he gasped mentally, his mouth tightening. _I can see where he might be beyond saving at this point, but may I be struck down if Simon tries anything and I don't catch it. _The idea of having Jayne's metaphorical blood on his hands, even indirectly, turned his stomach. Hearing Mal and Zoe leaving the room, he called after them. "Good luck!"

_Yeah,_ Zoe thought darkly as they headed for the cargo bay. _We're going to need it._


	26. Wholesome

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Just a heads up to all of you lovely loyal readers, the next few chapters may be posted a bit further apart than has been the norm up to this point. Unfortunately I broke my ankle and will require surgery, so my chances to write when I'm not hopped up on pain meds may be limited over the next few days. No worries, though, I am certainly not giving up the story! You just may not see a new chapter after this for a week or so. And for all of you sitting on the edges of your seats wondering when Jayne will awaken, it's coming, and trust me, it will be fluff worth waiting for.

* * *

"Mal!"

He stopped short as Inara's voice sounded from the catwalk overhead. Nodding, he indicated that Zoe should wait for him outside the ship. "Just be a moment," he assured her, choosing to pretend that he didn't see the grin spreading across her lips just before she turned and made her way down the ramp. _What in the hell does 'Nara want?_ the small part of him that wanted to get this entire mess over with griped as the silk-clad woman hurried down the stairs to where he stood, arms crossed in irritation at the delay, waiting for her. "Well?"

"Mal, what is going on? Where are you going in the middle of the night?"

"Simon's gone back in on Jayne. Said he's bleeding internally or something. Either way, blood we already got isn't going to be enough. Zoe and I are going back into town to get more." He started to leave her then, but she grabbed his arm, holding him back the same way she had earlier. _She ain't even hardly grabbing me. She freezes me just by touching me. I hate how she can do that. _He considered the fact that their hands were bare against each other. _I also really like how she can do that._

"Do you need money?" she asked simply. When he didn't answer, merely staring at her in consternation, she went on. "I have enough for another two bottles upstairs, so long as you can get the same rate they did earlier today. If it will help, I will fetch it down."

"'Nara," he said helplessly. _You're telling me you just keep that kind of money lying around up there? Reckon I know where I'll be sending Kaylee the next time she starts pestering for some new engine part. _"That's an awful lot of money to just hand over, you know."

"Malcolm," she said steadily, her hand tightening on his arm to drive home what she was about to say. "If he makes Kaylee happy, I do not care how much it costs to save him. It's only money, and her happiness is worth it. Besides that, I..." She lowered her eyes to the floor. "I owe him."

The captain's eyes bugged out at that. "What are you talking about? How'd you get to owe Jayne money? You don't gamble, at least not in the same ways he does, and I know he ain't got anything worth that much that you'd be interested in buying."

_Oh, you silly, stupid man. _"I owe him because of this," she hissed, shaking his arm. "I owe him because...because you are standing here with me, alive and able. Mal, I owe him my life as much as you do." _Without you, my life would be over. Must I really say that out loud in order for you to understand?_

His only immediate response was to gulp audibly. "'Nara," he whispered finally, knowing he was trapped and not caring as she drew a little closer. _Change the subject, change the subject,_ the romantic hermit he'd been nurturing in his mind for years screamed at him. "I-I can't take your money. Not for this."

She frowned slightly at that, but didn't pull away as she realized what his refusal of her offer signified. "You aren't planning on paying for the blood," she said slowly. "You and Zoe are going to rob him."

"He's got more than enough of our hard-earned cash," Mal protested at the disapproval he perceived he was hearing in her tone. "And we sure as hell didn't get the full worth of our coin earlier today. We're just...evening the scales. What's the problem with-"

"Hush," she silenced him, her fingers rising to rest against his lips. "Do you recall me saying that I disapproved of your plan?" she asked quietly.

He blinked at her, the heat from her hand shooting down through his entire body, warming his heart even as it paralyzed him.

"I didn't think so," she answered for him when it was plain that he was too stupefied to speak. Without another word, she kissed him firmly, then stepped away. "Now go on."

He blinked again, then followed her directive, walking slightly unsteadily towards the top of the ramp. "Mal!" she called after him again, just before he stepped out into the dark.

"Uhhh...?" he mumbled, turning back to her as docilely as a well-controlled zombie.

"You had better come back to me whole," she whispered fiercely.

"Uh....uh-huh..." Still completely stunned, he stumbled away with a nod.

She stood staring after him for a long time. _If you don't come back, Malcolm Reynolds,_ she threatened without speaking, chewing at her lip. Hearing a noise above her, she jumped, craning her neck to gaze up at the pair of feet swinging high above her. "...River?" she ventured. _Oh dear, how much of that did she see? _

The girl's face was pensive, drawn tight as if she had been contemplating a very knotty problem for some time and was only just beginning to sense it's resolution. "Half a being cannot survive," she mused. "It must be whole in order to live." Her eyes met Inara's, and even at a distance the Companion could see the spark that flashed through them. "Jayne lives, Kaylee lives. Jayne dies..."

_What?_ "If Jayne...dies...then what?" she demanded more harshly than she normally would, concern for Kaylee overriding her sense of propriety.

River's expression made it clear that the answer, to her at least, was a simple one. "Jayne dies, Kaylee dies, of course."

_No. Mal will get back in time, and Simon...well, Simon was very apologetic. Surely he will do the right thing. Surely he will prove that he meant what he said. _Seating herself on the nearest crate, she sighed, wrapping her arms about herself to help ward off the growing chill in the air until he returned to her. _Why does it seem like the universe is doing anything except being helpful today? The sooner the day ends and we can move on to tomorrow, the better. I just hope that tomorrow is worth living for, for both Kaylee and I._


	27. Musings at Midnight

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The story continues! To those of you who have been keeping up with the story, thanks for waiting for me to recover. Enjoy!

* * *

"Zoe."

"Yes, sir?" she responded as they stalked towards the few lights of town. She had barely managed to hide her mirth when Mal had come staggering down the ramp to join her, clearly still in a stupor over whatever Inara had said or done to him in the cargo bay. Knowing better than to bring up the fact that his voice still sounded off, she tried to push away her guesses about what wiles the Companion had used to get him so befuddled and focus on his words rather than his inflection.

"You know anything more about this doctor than that he drives a hard bargain?"

"Well, he should be pretty easy for us to run from, if we need to."

"What makes you say that?"

"_Hun dan _weighs about a ton." Mal's snicker from the darkness to her left inspired her to smile expression became somber again, however, when he pressed her for more knowledge and she recalled the listlessness that seemed to hang over the town. "Seemed to us earlier that he's milking his own people for blood. Maybe selling it to the Alliance, or whoever else happens to pass by needing it bad enough that he can squeeze them for everything they've got." _Like he did with us._

_Wo de me__. Stealing people's blood so he can make a profit off of it? _"How's he getting them to give up their own blood?" he wondered aloud.

"No idea, sir. The few we saw looked pretty miserable. Kind of like-" _Kind of how I imagine the Mudders looked before Jayne set foot on that hell of a moon and gave them a little something to believe in, even if he never meant to. _Keeping the thought to herself, she let her voice trail away.

"Sounds like reason enough to skip the formalities all together." Mal filled the silence.

"No objections here." _I'd like to shoot that _wang ba dan_ once or twice myself, I think._

The slight whistle of the desert wind was the only sound for a few steps. "Zoe."

"Still here, sir."

"What-" he broke off, pursing his lips. _What do we do if this doesn't work? _he wanted to ask her, but his pride in his position as captain stopped him. It might have been Zoe, his trusted second-in-command, at his side, but the question still conveyed too much fragility to be voiced, even to her.

She waited for him to finish, then spoke when she sensed that he wasn't interested in completing the question he had started to ask. "You figuring on just barging in and taking what we want, then?"

_Glad she didn't push for what I didn't want to ask,_ Mal thought in relief. "Think that would be the easiest. Probably the most enjoyable, too. Might as well enjoy ourselves a little, so long as we're out on the town."

"Been a while since it's just been the two of us out and about." She grimaced as she realized that there was no way Mal could know that she had been thinking about the adventures they'd had just after the war, when they hadn't had anyone but one another to watch their backs and their primary occupation had been trying to forget the past by swimming in whiskey and winning unnecessary bar fights. _He's gonna think I'm talking about Jayne. About...losing Jayne. About it maybe just being the two of us on jobs again. _Her conscious self shook it's head violently. _Ain't going to happen that way. It's better now, it can't go back to the way it was. Alcoholism and masochism ain't things to be proud of, even if we did have a legitimate reason to be depressed. _

"Yeah," Mal answered quietly. "It's kinda nice." _Feels funny. I like it, but I also hate it. Even when he's not talking, just knowing that there's a hulking presence stalking along behind me, watching our backs, is nice._

"Yeah. Kind of is." _Kind of isn't. _They walked on in silence again.

"Hey Zoe?" Mal said finally, a small grin playing around his mouth.

"Yes, sir?"

"Seeing as how this is the first time you and I have been out and about like this in a while, what do you say we make it a night to remember?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," she answered, her lips mirroring his. "Sounds like a plan."


	28. Practitioning

_ Poor little thing,_ Book thought as he felt Kaylee shaking under his hands. _I don't know how we are going to handle her if this doesn't work. _"How are you?" he asked her quietly, hating to do anything that might distract Simon from his work but unable to stand the terse moans of concern that escaped the mechanic every few minutes. Instead of speaking she merely turned towards him and buried her face against his shoulder, letting him hug her as tears moistened his collar. "It's all right," he whispered uselessly. "Simon knows what he's doing. It will be just fine."

"Wish 'Nara were here. No offense," she added quickly, her harm-none nature breaking through her misery.

"I take no offense at that," Book assured her. "I understand why you would want her here with you. Would you like me to find her? I'm sure she will come down and sit with you."

"No!" the young woman answered fervently. Glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder, her voice dropped so that the Shepherd had to strain to hear her words. "You gotta watch him. I dunno know what to look for, if he tries to-" Her voice hitched suddenly, her eyes watering back up at the idea she had been about to speak aloud. "Captain doesn't trust him," she said finally, hoping that her message would be understood.

He nodded. "All right," he agreed. "If you should change your mind-"

"I'm fine," she insisted. "I gotta be, least til this is all over. Can't let him down, he's gonna need me when he wakes up."

"You won't let him down, Kaylee. I'm sure he's already very proud of how strong you have been through all of this." He tried to smile convincingly, but he could feel it falter. _Please, please don't disappoint her, Jayne. Wake up. _

"You think so?" she inquired hopefully.

"I'm certain of it."

A stream of terse cursing that neither of them had ever expected to hear escape the lips of Simon Tam erupted without warning. "Doctor?" Book addressed him, leaving Kaylee and stepping up the table.

"Sponges," Simon snapped at him, both hands buried in his patient. "Now."

"Where-"

"Second cabinet behind me, third drawer. Keep them sterile!" he barked as the older man moved around the room. "The last thing he needs is an infection."

_Well,_ Book considered as he tore open the bin he'd been directed to and grabbed the first box of sponges he saw, _at least it appears that Simon has decided to do what's right in this situation, and not let his personal feelings get in the way again._ Even that realization lent very little comfort, though, when he stopped next to the surgeon and was able to see why the order for sponges had been so brusque. _All that blood just leaked right back out of him again. My God, how has he even survived this long?_

"Scrub up."

"Excuse me?"

"Wash your hands and put a pair of gloves on. I need more hands in here."

It had been a very long time since he had done anything remotely medical, but there was no way he was going to refuse, or even question the order, especially since it was Jayne on the table and Kaylee was once again sobbing inconsolably in the corner. Gulping, he prepped himself quickly, being careful not to touch anything after he'd cleaned up. "All right," he said uncertainly. "What do you need me to-"

"Hold this tight," Simon interrupted, shoving the handles of a tiny instrument at him with no further instructions. "Don't let up on it until I say so."

"What-"

"It's a vascular clamp."

_Ah. I...really don't know that I wanted to know that. _He had, of course, had some idea of what Simon was attempting to do with this second surgery, but the exact specifics had been fuzzy. _I've never had any regrets about being skilled with languages until now,_ he thought as he broke down the name of the object he was gripping and realized that somewhere underneath the torn tissue that obstructed his view he was holding shut a large blood vessel. _I would have been perfectly happy to help without knowing precisely what role I was performing._

"Just keep that tight for a few moments. Another stitch or two should seal this..." Looking over at Simon's face, Book espied the tip of his tongue poking between his teeth, evincing the surgeon's complete concentration. "All right, now release it slowly," he heard finally. With infinite care he lessened his hold millimeter by millimeter, a tiny measure of glee growing in him as each moment passed without incident. "Stop!" _Damn. _"Sponges."

Book handed them to him one by one, counting each as it went in and then came out dripping to be flung into the garbage. Finally Simon grabbed a handful and began to pack them into the open wound, shaking his head and muttering. "It's still leaking," he explained, frowning meditatively. "I can't suture it any further without closing off the blood flow to it, but I can only stop the flow for a limited amount of time."

"Why is that, Doctor?"

Sighing exasperatedly, the surgeon stripped his gloves off and began to set up the third and final bottle of blood. "The artery you were holding shut leads directly to his liver. Stopping the blood flow to his liver for too long will lead to damage and possibly organ failure. If we were in a hospital this would not be a problem; I could just hook him up to a machine that would continue to oxygenate the liver while I worked. I was hoping that the stitches I just put in would be sufficient, but as you can see," he said, gesturing to where red spots were already blooming on the topmost layer of sponges, "he's still hemorrhaging, and rapidly. In another three minutes, I'll need you to hold that clamp shut again so that I can try to finish repairing the vessel."

"_Try_ to repair it?"

"Yes, try. If the bleeding refuses to stop..." He shrugged. "Then there isn't anything more I can do. These are really rather primitive conditions in which to try and repair an injury of this magnitude."

He didn't particularly like the disinterest in the other man's tone, but having seen Simon in surgery mode before he knew it was his normal attitude rather than a surfacing of any hard feelings he might be retaining against Jayne. Book turned to see if Kaylee had overheard and found that she had disappeared from where he had left her. _Where-_ At the edge of his vision he caught movement and continued turning his head until he saw her. _She obviously caught the general meaning of everything Simon just said,_ he realized with despair as the mechanic perched on the counter beside the head of the bed and made every effort to get as close as she could to the figure on the table, her mouth set determinedly as she whispered to his unconscious mind. Pursing his own lips, he swiveled back around to face the surgeon.

"Simon." He waited until he had his full attention. "If you cannot save his life, then I suggest very strongly that you keep trying to do so until he is, in fact, dead. Otherwise I fear it may go very hard on you, and I am not only speaking of what you can expect from the captain and Zoe. They, after all, can only hurt you until you are dead." Raising his eyebrows to emphasize his point, the Shepherd retreated back to the corner to wait for the next phase. His only movement was to raise his eyebrows again every time Simon glanced nervously over at him during the next three minutes. _I don't think that he will let his personal feelings get in the way of his work again, _he thought, _if only because doing so would be another professional failure. Just in case, though...it can't hurt to give him a little more incentive to perform admirably. _Remembering his threats of a 'special Hell' to Mal several months earlier, he almost smiled._ After all, the suggestion of eternal agony has been shown to work on even the most stalwart Doubting Thomas._ Aware that he had done, for the moment at least, nearly every thing it was possible for him to doto help, he began to mouth a series of prayers, the sight of the fledgling couple a few feet away bringing an almost desperate look to his face and lending an air of pleading to his silent addresses.


	29. Burn Down the Mission

Zoe nudged Mal as they passed the first few pathetic structures of the town, nodding slightly in the direction of the much more substantial abode of the doctor. He didn't give any sign of acknowledgment, but she knew he understood. _Seems almost silly to be so careful about this_, she thought as she considered the abandoned streets. _Then again, there's plenty of shadows for people to be hiding in, too._ The few and far between lanterns that lent the road a little light could be creating ideal spots for anyone interested enough to spy on their movements, but that same darkness might prove very useful when it came time for them to vanish. _Don't know that there are too many people around who would have the energy to be watching us, _she added, recalling the lethargy of the townspeople earlier in the day.

They mounted the steps as if they were just a normal couple looking for a doctor, the only difference between them and normal people being that they ascended silently and then paused and listened at the door rather than knocking when they found it secured. Zoe turned to watch the street, putting her right hand in her pocket when she saw that there was still no one about. Not only was this Mal's signal to begin carefully picking the lock, it also allowed her to grip the butt of her gun secretly, just in case someone who wanted to question their presence _did _happen to appear.

"Must be quite the lock he's got on there," she whispered after several moments of nothing but heavy breathing and faint rasping noises coming from beside her.

"Two solid bolts," Mal panted back. "Having to saw through them. Almost done."

She went back to watching and listening to the captain cursing in a low voice. "Company," she warned, perceiving human movement in the dusky light around a building down the street.

"Done," he answered her, a trace of triumph in his tone as he pushed the door in slowly, tensing until it opened completely without a squeak. _Keeps that door well oiled, at least. Convenient._

They stepped into the dark and closed the door, pulling the latch back so that it wouldn't click as it brushed past the frame. As they waited for their eyes to adjust to the soupy blackness inside, Zoe caught familiar whiffs from earlier that day and tried to remember exactly how the little shop in the front of the building was laid out. _Shelves along all the walls, a couple in the middle. All of them full of glass that'll make noise no matter how gently you bump into it. Counter's straight back, blood's behind the curtain on the other side. _

"Air's thick in here," Mal whispered.

"Get the feeling he doesn't open the windows very often."

"Yeah. You know where the coolers are from here?"

"Yeah." Reaching out carefully until she could grip the sleeve of his coat, she guided him past the shelves and their treacherous vials, stopping her wary progress only when she came up against the counter. _Counter was pretty clear earlier, so we should be able to find our way behind it without too much worry..._ Hoping that the doctor hadn't left any potentially loud projects out overnight, she groped her way to a human-sized opening and pulled Mal in behind her, waving her hand a few inches from where the wall appeared to be until fabric brushed her fingertips. "Here."

_Why would a doctor keep their blood supply hidden behind a curtain?_ Mal wondered as Zoe slid the material out of the way. _It's looking more and more like he really is stealing blood._ His stomach churned at the thought of people being forcibly strapped to a table so that they could drip into a jar for someone else's profit. _If that's what this _hun dan _is doing, ain't no way we're going to just let him slide. That just ain't right._

"That's different," Zoe whispered. "Didn't see that earlier." She pointed to a shaft of light at floor level that began just past the cooler and had been hidden by the pooled cloth.

"Door," Mal whispered back.

"Voices," she practically mouthed in response, both of them falling silent and craning their heads to listen. There were clearly people moving about on the other side of the wall, with one voice giving short orders that were quickly followed by various sounds, some of them very strange. _Almost sounds like they're doing surgery in there,_ Zoe realized, her eyes widening. _We've gone and walked in on one of his blood milkings._ Concentrating for a few moments on the different voices, she held her hand up in front of Mal's face, three fingers raised. He glanced at her, then listened for a minute longer and shook his head, his lips tightening as he lifted his own hand with only his thumb hidden. _So there's four of them in there. Must be a couple just for muscle, no reason for four people to be in on this sort of thing otherwise._

They stood for another few seconds, each trying to determine the rough positions of their quarry based on the few sounds that were audible through the door. Their eyes finally met, a nod passed between them, and Zoe could see the countdown begin in Mal's eyes as he prepared to push the door open. _Here we come, you sick creep. You're going to regret driving such a hard bargain earlier. Should have just given us what we needed the first time we asked for it. _She almost chuckled. _Mal hates having to do things twice. _He walked in as if belonged there, raising his gun smoothly and training it on the only person in the room visibly holding a weapon. _That scrawny little assistant the doctor's got over there looks about ready to be sick, _he thought to himself as his eyes swept around the room, _and those other two look more like buyers than muscle_. "Evening," he greeted calmly.

"Wha-" The doctor stared at him gapingly, still holding a dripping scalpel in his hand. As Zoe stepped into the room behind Mal, his face changed. "Ah, yes. My newest customer."

"Seems we have a bit of a problem," Mal informed him. "You took a fair amount of money from my crew earlier and didn't exactly provide an equal trade. We're here to collect the rest."

The fat man drew himself up behind the table, his flustered look turning stormy. "That deal has been completed. As I explained to the lady," he gestured towards the glowering Zoe, "I cut her quite a generous deal, even after she declined to become better acquainted with me."

_He tried to seduce her?_ Mal had to fight to keep his grin under control. _No wonder she ain't your biggest fan._ "Seems you've got a corner on the blood market around here," he began, then stopped as he realized the problem with the scene before him. _He's holding a knife. You don't need a knife to milk somebody for blood. _"...And on other things, too," he went on haltingly.

"Sir?" Zoe asked as she, too, grasped the quandary.

"You're taking more than blood," Mal said slowly. The doctor's only response was a sneer. "What is this?"

"I am a businessman, sir. Surely you can understand that. Now, I really do have to finish removing this kidney. If you'll just wait outside, perhaps we can discuss your little adding mistake when I am finished."

"You," Mal barked at one of the well-dressed men in the corner. "You here to buy what he's about to cut out of somebody?"

The taller buyer's chin lifted a little, his scorn evident as he sniffed at the question. "The life that this organ will preserve is of infinite more importance than that of the person providing the necessary tissue."

_Sounds like something Simon would say,_ Mal thought. "Who're you to decide that?"

"Are you suggesting that the peasant on the table is of equal consequence to a war hero?" the buyer shot back. "Our mission is to secure a healthy kidney, and this girl is the closest match we can get to in time. You may discuss your business with the physician after the kidney is in our hands." His voice lowered threateningly. "Please be aware that interfering with this operation will be considered an act of treason."

_War hero, huh? I can guess what side of the war he was on, cause none of the real war heroes are still around to be needing kidneys._ "Well, now, we wouldn't want to do anything like commit treason against the government, now would we?" he simpered over his shoulder to Zoe, a completely insincere smile plastering itself across his face. "We'd never think of doing anything to subvert the Alliance."

"No sir. Never thought of it," she replied. He could hear the tight anticipation in her voice as she considered what they had stumbled onto.

"Since you're on such important business, I reckon we'll just wait out here for the doctor to finish up. Anything to help you along. Ain't that right?"

"Anything to help, sir," she replied, now positively beaming as she stepped up fully beside him, bringing her own gun around as she did. "Wouldn't want to let a hero die."

They had a system, she and Mal did, that ensured that they wouldn't fire at the same person in situations like this and possibly leave time for the other target to react. _You take the high road, captain, and I'll take the low,_ Zoe thought with complete ease as they fired almost simultaneously. Her shot nearly decapitated the shorter agent, plowing through his neck and leaving a design of blood and gore on the wall that was only added to by the specks of brain matter deposited by Mal's victim. _Hell, reckon even Jayne'd be pretty proud of that one,_ she crowed to herself as they turned back to the now livid doctor and his terrified mouse of an assistant.

"Well," the doctor said tersely. "I don't suppose you are interested in purchasing any of this girl's organs, since she is already under anesthesia?"

"You know what we're here for. You ain't cut her yet?"

"No. We were just about to begin the procedure when you barged in. Why didn't you just take the blood?"

"Huh?" Mal asked, narrowing his eyes in bemusement.

"The blood you came back for. I probably would not have noticed the theft until morning, by which time you could have been untraceable. You could have just taken it and gone, and left me to my business. It was in very poor taste to interrupt my dealings with other clients."

"Taste ain't one of my virtues."

"Obviously." The doctor paused to consider them, running a hand almost absently over his rotund stomach as he did. "I am not an unfeeling man, you know," he offered finally. "I'm sure this seems quite ghastly, but I assure you life for these people is much better than it was before I arrived. My practice has greatly stimulated the local economy. Why, before my arrival this was a town of communal farmers. Do you know what that means?"

"Only thing I'm particularly interested in is what I came for," Mal growled, shifting restlessly.

"In a moment, in a moment. I believe it is very important to establish a bond with those you are to have business dealings with. I tried to do so earlier with your lady friend, but she does not share that philosophy. Now, you must understand that these people had no disposable income before I arrived, whereas now they can earn extra money by selling blood and, on occasion, other personal products to me. They no longer have to labor in the fields all day, but need merely keep small home gardens, as they can purchase the rest of their food with the money they earn _simply by breathing_." Color crept up into his face as he spoke, beads of excited sweat appearing on his already gleaming forehead. "Why, this girl you see here would have received almost a full hundred from the sale of only one kidney. That was a year's earnings for her family before I introduced the organic products market to this town. You see, you have ruined a marvelous opportunity for her now." He shook his head, completely oblivious to the twisted looks of shock on Mal and Zoe's faces.

_He actually thinks he's helping them? No way he's that stupid, cutting people up and selling the pieces ain't helping them. _"Law ain't got a problem with you butchering the locals?" he asked as complacently as he could manage. His finger itched terribly, but he tried to ignore it, achingly curious to know how the huge doctor had gotten away with his 'practice' up until now.

"As you saw," he replied, smiling condescendingly, "the Alliance is one of my best customers. This far out, medical supplies are few and far between. I provide a service, for which I pay the people a reasonable percentage."

"Sounds like your idea of reasonable and mine don't quite meet. I figure three bottles of blood for almost fifteen hundred is about as far from reasonable as you can get. Specially when it ain't yours to sell to begin with."

"Surely you understand that as a businessman I must charge what the market will bear."

"Seems like you must be making quite a profit for yourself. Buying cheap and selling high."

"You want to know how I get them to contribute for so little," the doctor nodded. "I admire your skills of deduction, and your interest in my work. It's very simple. They don't know any better. I offer them what seems a small fortune for things that they don't really need. Blood replaces itself; a healthy young girl can live a full life with only one kidney. They believe that I have improved their quality of life. If they choose to purchase things that they could get through hard work and harness themselves to an economic system that they do not understand, that isn't my fault. Unfortunately many of them have already fallen into debt, and now owe me more than they can pay with just blood." Looking down at the unconscious girl on the table, he smiled sadly. "But I do everything in my power to help them out of debt. Why, I arranged this deal myself with this very family in mind. I do not force them to pay their debts; they choose to pay them." His smile changed into something more malicious and cunning. "They're not smart enough to run away when their obligations become too strenuous."

"_Hun dan,_" Mal heard Zoe whisper behind him. He could feel the anger rolling off of her, and knew that only her iron self-control was keeping the doctor's head intact. He wondered if the man in front of him knew enough that he would try and defend himself with anything other than words. _Sure as hell ain't letting him go_ he promised himself. _But he might not be as stupid as he makes himself sound. He didn't seem real surprised to see Zoe; if he was expecting her to come back tonight, could be he moved the blood. We didn't check that cooler before we came in here. If we shoot him before we have it, we might not find it, and we can't fail this job._

"Well," he started, speaking slowly in order to keep the ire out of his voice, "only problem with that is that I'm one of those people who won't run out on an obligation. I don't particularly think others ought to, either, and that's where this all comes back around to you. Now, like I said you received a fair amount of money earlier, and didn't really give a fair exchange for it. You didn't hold up your end of the bargain, least not in our books, and I reckon that makes you a pretty poor businessman." When the fat man looked about to repeat his earlier remarks about the deal being closed, he went on. "Won't look too good for your business to be having all your customers end up dead in your office, neither, now will it?"

"No one but my assistant and I know they actually reached town," the doctor confided. "I can simply claim that they never arrived, if I am asked."

"Well, suppose we can help you with that argument?" he suggested, a plan forming in his mind. _Might just work, too._

"How do you propose to do that?"

"You give us as much of the blood we need that we can carry, and we'll make sure no one ever finds what's left of those two. Reckon once your assistant cleans the walls some and we get rid of the bodies, no one will question your story."

"Hmm...a plan that alleviates problems for both of us. I believe that we have a deal, sir." Completely ignoring the heavy firearm that was still pointed at his head, the doctor moved around the table, extending his hand to Mal to seal the agreement. Knowing that Zoe had him in her sights and that the assistant had all but wet himself out of fear and wasn't likely to try anything in the few brief seconds his gun would be down, he shook. "So, if you would like to remove the bodies..."

"The blood comes first," Mal interjected. "We'll take it and the bodies with us when we leave."

"How are you planning on carrying all of that?"

"We came in on horseback," Mal lied. "No problem."

"Ah." The doctor's smile faltered a little as he realized that the horses would allow them to carry much more blood than he intended to part with. "How wonderful for you."

Mal and Zoe stepped aside enough for the doctor to lead the way out of the room and back into the store area. Gesturing the assistant to come along as well, they followed him, moving around to the outside of the counter as soon as they could. _Man smells like he bathed in some sort of expensive stinkweed, _Mal bemoaned, trying not to wrinkle his nose. They watched in the pale light casting out from the adjoining room as he moved immediately to the cooler and began to set jars out. _Ai ya_,_we could of just shot him after all._

After three bottles had been laid out, the doctor closed the cooler and turned to them. "There you are," he announced.

"That all you've got?" Zoe asked skeptically. "Pretty sure there was more than that in there earlier today, and we can carry more than three bottles."

"Considering the price you paid earlier, this is ample payment for the job you have proposed to do. However," his smile turned suggestive, "my offer of friendship beyond business still stands. I might be able to rob another bottle or two from my stores for a close personal friend."

_That's it,_ Zoe decided. _We got what we need, and I know there's more in there, so Jayne's blood is secure. Normally I'd wait for the captain's go ahead, but I'm sick of listening to this _wang bad an _proposition me. _"I ain't interested in being your close personal anything," she responded bluntly, raising her pistol and aiming it point blank at his forehead. _Funny how it shines even where there isn't hardly any light, _she observed as his eyes widened in horror at just how wrong his deal had suddenly gone. "_Cao ni zuzong shi ba dai__1__,"_ she told him in the politest tone she could conjure up before squeezing the trigger.

When the echo had died away and the doctor had finished sliding to the floor, the look of surprise still evident on what was left of his face, Mal finally spoke. "Huh."

"Mmm," Zoe grunted back, not wanting to talk about her unusual decision to preempt Mal's orders. She stepped back behind the counter and tried to nudge the huge dead man out of the way. When he wouldn't budge, she merely lifted one leg over and straddled him while she removed every correctly typed bottle in the cooler, keeping count as she did. "Seven," she said finally, slamming the cooler shut and beginning to dig around for something to carry them in.

"Makes ten total, with the three he already pulled out." _Hope it will be enough. Who knows, with Simon operating again. _He turned to the mute, shaking physician's assistant who was gripping the counter as if his life depended on it. "You from around here?"

Gulping loudly, he nodded. "Y-y-yes sir."

"Why'd you help him?"

"N-n-no choice. Family has a debt to him." They could hear his teeth chattering in terror as he tried to speak.

"They had a debt to him," Mal corrected. "Now you've got one to me, at least you do if you want to live, _dong ma?_" _Don't really want to have to kill you. Ain't none of this your fault._

"Yes sir."

"You want to pay it off quick and easy?"

"Yes sir!"

"Keep your mouth shut about us being here." The boy-and he was only a boy, Mal realized now that he actually looked at him-shook his head enthusiastically. "You figure you can burn this place without catching the whole town on fire?"

"Yes sir, I sure can."

"Then do it. Anyone asks, you never saw those agents. Doctor asked you to come out here to get something for the surgery he was doing, room was on fire when you tried to go back in. You got out. Good enough for you?"

"Uh-huh."

"All right. Zoe? We got what we came for?"

She straightened from where she was patting down the dead man's pockets, securing a bag of money to her belt as she did. "Figure we earned it back," she explained needlessly. She handed Mal a sack containing half the blood as she moved around the counter to join him, shouldering a second herself. "Surprised we ain't heard anything about the shots," she pointed out. Her eyes slid to the boy, who quickly volunteered an explanation.

"Ain't nobody got the energy to look," he said, a mild confidence appearing in his bearing as he came to realize that he wasn't going to be shot. "And besides, we ain't as stupid as he thinks. Lots a us know he's had us trapped, and don't like it none. Gunshots at the doctor's...nobody's gonna be real quick to try and help him, ya know?"

"All right, then. Just one more thing before we go."

"Sir?" Zoe inquired as Mal stepped around the counter and around the assistant to reenter the back room. He was back just a few seconds later, tying something to his own belt. "Didn't figure those agents had come empty handed, did you?" he asked teasingly, patting the jingling accessory. "Just hope it ain't marked." Pulling something that shone dimly from his own pocket, he flipped it to the boy in the doorway. "You'll have earned that and then some by the time you're done. Anything else of value he's got around here..." he trailed off, shrugging. "Be a shame for it to go up in smoke." Gesturing to Zoe, he headed for the front door.

"Make sure you get that girl back to her family," she warned the assistant, waiting for his nod of assent before she, too, turned away. Stepping outside, she glanced around for any sign of trouble, believing the boy's words but unable to avoid the instinctual habit. Seeing that everything was clear, she joined Mal at the bottom of the steps. Falling into step with one another, they cut around the back of the building and stole out of town, trying to keep the noise of clinking money and rattling bottles from announcing them. Half of the walk back had been whiled away before either spoke.

"Hell of a night to remember," Mal commented mildly. _Hope it keeps being one, and for good reasons._

"Yes, sir," Zoe agreed, sounding equally contented. "It was that." _Just hope we don't get back to find it was all in vain. You better still need this stuff when we get home, Jayne. I ain't in the kind of mood to find out any different._

1Fuck your ancestors.


	30. Bleeding Hearts

"...Well, doctor?" Shepherd Book asked as Simon stepped back from the table. Stripping off his mask and flinging his gloves into the garbage, his mouth tightened slightly.

"There's still a little seepage, but it's not nearly as bad as it was before. If it clots like it should, that will stop in an hour or so. The problem is, once again, going to be blood." He nodded toward the nearly empty bottle as he spoke. "If the captain and Zoe weren't able to procure at least several bottles more, then I don't have high hopes for him. He's just as low now as he was before we started giving him the first bottle. Maybe even lower than that, what with the expected losses from surgery. You can see for yourself how his color is off."

"They'll get it," Kaylee half-whispered as she drew near the bed again and picked up the closest cold hand. "They've gotta get it."

"If they do manage to bring more, then his blood pressure becomes an issue again," the surgeon continued. "The exact same problem may arise when he receives more blood. I've packed the wound open so that there is a chance we'll detect any major leakage in time to try and do something about it." He yawned, immediately regretting the action as the jaw muscles under his bruised skin pulled painfully. "I'm going to try and get some sleep. Please let me know when they've returned?"

"Of course," Book agreed easily. "Thank you," he called as Simon left, choosing to interpret the doctor's muttered response as a gracious reply. "Would you like me to go and find Inara for you now?" he asked Kaylee. 

"I'm all right," she answered without looking up from adjusting the blankets around the injured mercenary. He flinched slightly when she bumped the arm with the needle in it, and she frowned deeply. "Hand me another smoother 'fore you go, would you?"

"Of course." Retrieving the requested item, he watched her administer it before moving towards the door. "I will be back in shortly," he informed her, waiting for her to nod before stepping out of the room and heading for the cargo bay in the hopes of meeting up with the captain and Zoe as they returned from their quest. _Hopefully from their successful quest,_ he added mentally as he turned into the large open space. Finding Inara seated on a crate, he stopped short. "Inara," he greeted her warmly. "I certainly did not expect to see you down here."

"I have been waiting for them to return," she told him quietly, inviting him to sit down by gesturing to an empty crate near her own. "How is he?"

"About the same as he was before he received any blood, I think. At least that was the impression I got from Simon a few minutes ago."

"And Kaylee?" she asked, her voice tightening slightly as she remembered River's words. _Jayne dies, Kaylee dies._ "How is she doing?"

"She seems to be holding up admirably well. I asked if she wanted me to fetch you for her, but she said she was fine."

"Did you believe her?"

He looked at her for a moment, weighing how what he was about to say might sit with her. "I believe that so long as Jayne is still breathing, Kaylee will hold herself together," he finally said frankly.

The Companion let out a long sigh. "River said something very like that earlier this evening," she confided. "Just after Mal and Zoe left for town."

"Oh? What was that?"

"She said that if Jayne dies, then Kaylee will, too." A single tear made it's way down her cheek. "Shepherd, I do not know if I can believe that Kaylee would do anything dangerous to herself if he...well...but at the same time I cannot help but understand why she would not want to live without him."

"I don't necessarily think that Kaylee would do herself harm, Inara," he tried to comfort her. "River may have meant that she would die in a different sense than physically. Emotionally, perhaps?" he suggested, hoping that the woman beside him would share any relevant confessions the mechanic may have made to her.

"She loves him," she admitted, shaking her head slightly. "I do not entirely understand why, although I think that perhaps I can see a bit more of his good side tonight than I ever did before. What I see does not matter, though. What matters is that she honestly believes that he is the person she wants to spend the rest of her life with. If he isn't there for her to be with, I do not know what she might do." _I know that I would have an exceedingly difficult time coping in the same situation. Fortunately and unfortunately Jayne has kept me from having to face that demon right now._ "I just wish there was some way that I could do more to help. If he dies, I fear that she simply will not be Kaylee any more. I cannot bear to think of that happening. To lose one of them, and then to lose the other."

"Inara, listen. I know that you aren't someone who believes in prayer, per se, but..."

"It would be a bit pointless for me to pray to a deity I do not acknowledge as existing," she pointed out gently.

"Yes, it would be. But you do believe in the power of energy, do you not? I feel as helpless as you do right now, my dear, but I have found that turning to prayer helps. Maybe for you, sending positive thoughts and energy will be a comfort."

"I have been doing so all day," she admitted. "And it has helped, but...there is only so far that such immaterial actions can carry you. As much as we both want him to live and be with Kaylee, as much as we all want that, no amount of prayer or positive energy is going to make that happen, at least not on it's own." She shook her head again sadly. "Without the blood that Mal and Zoe are currently engaged in acquiring, all the good thoughts in the Verse will not save his life. Without him, I am certain that Kaylee will change. She may not suffer a physical death, but emotionally and spiritually I cannot imagine what she will become. They simply have to get that blood for him, Shepherd."

_You're right, Inara. I agree with every word you've said, but I can't exactly say that. What kind of a person would I be if I just let you wallow in this misery and didn't try to give you some hope, even when I have very little left myself? _He opened his mouth to speak, praying that something helpful would come tumbling out, but before his own woebegone status could be made evident by his silence the sound of footsteps on the ramp snapped their heads around.

"Mal," Inara breathed as he entered, Zoe close behind him. _You're safe._ As she espied the bags they were carrying and the hesitant looks of relief on their faces, her comfort grew. _They have blood. Thank goodness._ She closed her eyes momentarily, trying to squeeze back tears. _Things are finally going right. Please, please let them stay that way._

"Here, Zoe," Mal said, handing his second-in-command the bag he had toted from town. "Best get that where it's needed."

"Yes, sir," she answered, striding toward the infirmary with little more than a nod of greeting to the two who had been waiting for them. _Judging from the way Shepherd and 'Nara are acting, I'd guess that there's still need for it. Good thing, I don't know how bad Kaylee would take it otherwise. I wouldn't be worth _go se _if Wash..." _She shook the vision out of her head. _But that ain't likely to happen. One of the benefits of my husband being a pilot is that most of the potentially lethal situations he winds up in involve all of us dying together. Not much chance of him going before me, I reckon. More likely to be the other way around._

Back in the cargo bay, Inara had risen and made her way towards Mal. She desperately wanted to embrace him but was uncertain how he would react with an audience, so she held herself back, merely reaching her hand out to him. He took it, squeezing it gently before brushing past her and moving back to where Shepherd Book was still seated. _He didn't let go,_ she wondered deliriously as he pulled her along with him. _He is actually holding my hand._

_Oh, ruttin' hell,_ Mal cursed as he stopped before the sitting man and observed the quiet telling smile on his face. _I got so caught up in her coming toward me that I forgot to let go of her hand._ Realizing this, he immediately released her, a pang of anguish going through him as he did. Unwittingly he tossed her an apologetic look, and was shocked to receive an understanding look in return. _Ain't no way I'm getting out of this one. I think she's finally caught me._

"Captain?" Shepherd Book asked finally. "Was there something you wanted to speak with me about?"

"Yeah," he said quickly, straightening up to try and hide his moment of weakness. "How'd the surgery go?"

"Simon seems to think he's back where he was before the first batch of blood was given to him. He's less than optimistic about whether or not the new sutures will be enough once his blood pressure goes up again, though."

"Then tell him to put more in until there are enough!" Mal barked, throwing his hands up.

"Captain, there is only so much humanly possible. I watched the doctor work, and I assure you I saw nothing that I thought was anything less than professional. If he could put more sutures in, I'm sure that he would. He did leave the incision open, so that it would be easier to monitor for new bleeding."

"Left it...open?" _Like he's laying in there with a gaping hole in him? _Mal felt his stomach turn slightly. He wasn't averse to blood or gore, not after having seen so much of it in his life, but the thought of someone he knew as more than a name sitting next to him in a foxhole being like that was less than comforting. _Ain't so sure I want to see that._

"Yes. He said that was the safer path, at least until he can be certain that the bleeding won't continue."

"Where is our illustrious doctor now?" he asked emphatically.

"He's gone to try and get some sleep. He did ask to be wakened when you returned, though."

"Let him sleep," Mal said when Book prepared to rise, ostensibly to get the surgeon. "We'll get him if we need him. If it comes to that point, I want him as well rested as possible. I'm going to the infirmary, see how Zoe's getting along." He glanced over at Inara, who had remained standing by his side as he spoke with Book. "Kinda surprised you ain't already down there. I suppose Kaylee still won't leave him?"

"You would have to blow up the ship's engine to get her to even consider it," the Shepherd informed him. "Even then I don't know that it would be enough of an enticement."

"Good," the captain replied gruffly, pausing when he saw the confused looks of the others. "Well, I figure if you're going to be in love with someone, it ought to be love like that. Ain't no reason for you two to look at me like I've lost my head for thinking that. It's a perfectly natural sentiment. Don't-don't you think?" he stuttered his defense to a close, trying not to look at Inara as he voiced the question.

"You are correct, of course," she agreed, smiling at him when he gave her a worried glance. "Would you mind, Malcolm, if I accompanied you to the infirmary? I would like to check on them as well. Perhaps we can take care of things long enough for Zoe to go and let Wash know she is back safely. I'm sure he would appreciate that."

"Uh...sure thing, 'Nara. Book?" he asked almost desperately. "You coming?"

"No, thank you," he answered, sharing a mysterious look with Inara. "I'll stop by in a little while. Right now I have something to attend to in my quarters." Saying nothing more, he slipped off towards the passenger dorms, leaving them alone.

"Well...reckon we ought to, then," Mal said nervously.

She almost laughed at him, only holding back because she knew he would be offended by her reaction to his juvenile romantic fumblings. "Of course," she agreed instead, starting out ahead of him. Just before they entered the hallway, she pretended to slip and nearly fall. He grabbed her arm tightly before her performance could turn into a real accident.

"Careful!" he nearly barked at her. "We've got enough injuries to deal with right now. Don't need you adding to them."

"I just don't know how that happened," she berated herself, maneuvering as she spoke so that her arm was linked through his in such a way that he couldn't escape without either being a total ass or falling down himself. "I am so glad that you were here to catch me, Mal," she said quietly, allowing her lips to speak very close to his ear.

"Uh...yeah. Me too," he gulped. _That hallway ain't never looked so long before,_ he thought, setting his jaw as they started to walk again, hips brushing slightly in the narrow corridor. _Ain't never seemed so short, either. _

In the dark town byond the now empty cargo bay, a distant spark flashed, then caught and grew into a blaze.


	31. Scar Tissue

"Well," Simon said finally, stepping back from the table. "There's still a little seepage along the suture lines, but overall it seems to be holding. He still needs more blood, but I think the worst of the damage is fixed."

"You closin' him up, then?" Kaylee asked hopefully from where she was once more cradling Jayne's head on her lap. "Everything's gonna be alright?"

"It might be a little early to say that for certain, but his prospects are much better than they were three hours ago." As he answered her he produced a suture kit from a drawer and began to prepare a needle. "I am going to go ahead and close, though."

Mal yawned in the corner he had been watching the proceedings from. Shortly after he and Inara had entered the infirmary together, earning them knowing looks from both Zoe and Kaylee, Simon had appeared and insisted on waiting there for the fresh transfusions to bring his patient's blood pressure up. The others had all tried to discourage him, but he had been unmoved by their assurances that they would fetch him if he was needed. _Least he seems to have remembered what exactly his job is on this ship, _Zoe had noted to herself when she left to check in with Wash. _Wonder if the captain's planning on throwing him off for before. Be kind of a shame, since he seems to have come around since._

Now, as Mal stood up and wandered towards the table to keep an eye on the surgeon he still did not entirely trust around his wounded mercenary, the second in command entered and quickly assessed the situation. "I can stay here for a while, sir," she offered, seeing how clearly tired he was. "Keep an eye on things."

Simon stopped. "Am I under surveillance now?" he nearly squawked. "That hardly seems necessary, seeing as how I've just successfully saved his life."

The captain spun on him. "Yeah, and he wouldn't have been so close to losing it if you'd have done your job earlier today," he reminded him testily. "You figure I'm letting you be alone with him before he can defend himself, you're out of your ruttin' mind. Zoe's staying here to watch you work, Kaylee's staying here because she wants to, and I'm going to get some sleep. Just because he's coming out of the woods doesn't mean you are," he threatened finally. "Zoe, you give me a call if you need a break."

"Will do, sir. Wash said he'd be willing to take a turn, too, once his shift's done." She narrowed her eyes for a second. "Actually, I think Jayne's supposed to be next on guard."

"I'll take the shift," Mal said wearily. _Don't realize how much a person does on this boat until they can't do it anymore. Then it's hell trying to cover for them._ "Wash's done in what, a couple hours?" When Zoe nodded, he sighed. _Guess it'll have to be coffee rather than sleep, then. Maybe I can get Book to take the second half of the shift. _

Muttering something that sounded mutinous, Simon began laboriously sewing shut each layer of tissue he had sliced back open earlier in the evening. Zoe considered calling him on the dissent, but refrained when she noticed that his mumbles didn't match the pale and slightly frightened look on his face. _He knows Mal's thinking of throwing him off. Saying anything right now would probably just make him nervous, and there ain't no point in making his hands shake. Last thing Jayne needs is for Simon to mess up again. _She chose to keep her mouth shut and merely watched, glancing up occasionally to where Kaylee was whispering again, her loose hair falling into a curtain around her and Jayne's faces. _She's going to be nervous as anything the first time we go back out on a job after this. I don't envy her, or any of the ones we leave back here, worrying, when we head out to work. Can't imagine sitting here not knowing if people you cared about were going to come back._

The room was silent except for the mechanic's constant flow of quiet encouragement and the various sounds of machinery until the doctor straightened himself up and stretched with a slight groan. "You finished?" Zoe demanded crisply.

"Yes. I even made the effort to suture in such a way as to minimize the scar, not that he will take notice or be gracious about it if he does. It isn't as if he has to perform for the ladies anymore, so I suppose it really doesn't matter how scarred up he gets." Seeing the hurt look that flashed across Kaylee's face at his words, he instantly regretted his acrimony. _I didn't mean to be so coarse,_ he wanted to tell her. _I am just supremely unhappy about the foolish decision you are making. I apologize._ It was what he should have said, and he knew it, but his mouth worked around the words without being able to utter them. Finally, feeling the second in command's dark eyes glaring at the back of his head, he just turned and left the room, fuming partially at the new couple on the table but mostly at himself. _If any of them mention what I just said to Mal, River and I really will be thrown off the ship._ A cold ball of dread grew in his stomach as he realized how ill-timed his ireful words had been.

"That selfish _hun dan_ deserves to be thrown off this ship," Zoe whispered.

"Oh, I hope he isn't!" Kaylee exclaimed. Seeing the other woman's surprised look, she explained. "It ain't that I'm happy with him right now, considering what he tried to do earlier, how he neglected his job and all, but...what'll we do if someone gets hurt bad again and he's not here? Besides, it ain't poor River's fault that her brother's bein' so mean on account of his being upset about me wanting to be with Jayne instead of him. She don't deserve to be left behind, especially not with the Alliance still after her. No way we can keep one and not the other, neither. And Simon ain't bad, he's just upset right now. He'll start being nice again soon enough, I'm sure of it."

"Maybe," Zoe conceded. "Either way, what he said just now wasn't right, to you or to Jayne."

"I know." Sighing, she ran her hand along the unconscious mercenary's cheek. "How long you figure til he starts getting wakeful, Zoe?"

"Can't say for sure, honey. Maybe morning, if we're lucky." _Still maybe never, if we're not. Even Simon wasn't sure he was okay just yet. Things are looking up, though._ "Don't forget he's likely to be in a fair amount of pain when he does wake up," she reminded the eager mechanic gently. "Best have a smoother close by for when he wants it. If he starts moving around too much because he's hurting he might tear some of those stitches Simon just put in." _And I don't particularly want to give the doctor another excuse to put his hands in him. _

"I know. I've got one right here," she gestured to the counter behind her. "Sure hope he can wait long enough for it that we can talk a little, though. Got some things I've just gotta say to him."

"Kaylee, honey, you've got the rest of your lives to say everything you want to."

"I just want him to know is all, Zoe. I just want him to know how much I love him. I won't say too much, I can't stand seeing him in pain."

"All right. If you think you're all right down here, I'm going to go get some sleep. I'll tell Wash to poke his head in here before he comes to bed, make sure you're doing all right."

"'Kay," the younger woman agreed. "I might try to sleep some, too. Been such a long day." She stifled a yawn as she began to slide back under the covers, arranging herself carefully around the figure beneath them. "G'night, Zoe."

"G'night, honey. You holler if you need anything, all right?"

"I will," she promised foggily, already half-asleep.

She stood watching over them for a few minutes longer, finally shaking her head slightly. "Don't know how we all missed seeing it before," she spoke to the gently humming air. "They're just too damn perfect together." Envisioning Kaylee and Simon together, she scoffed. "Passive aggressive little..." she bit off her words as one of the two sleepers shifted, and stepped closer just long enough to ensure that it wasn't Jayne moving in pain. Satisfied that they were secure for a while, she headed out, stopping to glance back and finish her thought. _Simon never did treat her like she deserves. Jayne will._ _Hell, the man spoils whores, I can just imagine what Kaylee's got coming. Damn good thing she likes sex almost as much as he does. I don't imagine either one of them will be wanting in that department from here on, although a few brothels might be finding themselves on hard times until some new customer with Jayne's appetite comes along. _Directing herself toward the bridge and her own love, she snickered a little to herself. _If anyone else with that big an appetite for sexin' even exists._

* * *

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: _I promise wakefulness in the next chapter! Thanks to those of you who have come along with me this far!


	32. You Oughta Know

She shifted and stretched, trying to puzzle together what had woken her from her incredibly shiny dream. _Mmm...me and Jayne spendin' all day together. Start out with a walk in the woods, nobody around...sexin' on a real nice carpet of soft moss...we could find a pretty little pool to clean up in, then I could start a fire while he was catchin' us a couple a fish. Take a nap after we ate, then come back home...shower up...together...and get ready to go out for dinner someplace fancy, least if I can get him to dress up. Probably would if I asked real nice. Maybe, if the money'd been good lately, we could even rent a real hotel room for a night, one with a big, soft bed..._ She had just gotten around to envisioning what exactly they would be doing in that big, soft bed for most of the night when she had been called to consciousness. _What's goin'-oh!_ Half-sitting as she realized that it had been Jayne's slight movements beside her that had disturbed her dream, she watched his face avidly, fidgeting as she waited for him to open his eyes and see her.

"C'mon, _baobei," _she said softly, stroking the back of her fingers down the side of his face and neck. "C'mon and wake up. Promise I've got a real nice surprise for you if you do." She frowned as she realized that he was still wearing an oxygen mask. _Don't want him to panic if he wakes up with that thing on, he hates bein' in here as it is. Still, don't know if I ought to take it off without Simon's say so...but how's he gonna talk to me with a mask on? Maybe he ain't gotta talk, if he's still real weak. _Finally she reached over and carefully took it off, setting it within arm's reach in case he acted like he needed it back. _Least this way he'll feel like it's his choice of usin' it or not,_ she reasoned. "Jayne? Honey, wake up."

Each moment that passed as he struggled towards wakefulness made Kaylee want to explode with impatience._ I only need you awake for a few minutes,_ she begged mentally. _C'mon, open your gorram eyes!_ As much as she wanted him to see her, to speak to her, she hated how the pained expression on his face was deepening the closer he grew to consciousness. _Just a quick second, I promise, then you can sleep again...I just can't wait_ _anymore to tell you..._ In order to ensure that she would be able to keep that oath, she turned her head to check on the painkiller she'd set out earlier, and in doing so missed the wispy flash of hope that went through Jayne's eyes in the first instant after he recognized her.

"Kaylee girl?" he whispered hoarsely, his visage turning confused at her presence. "What...?" _What in the hell happened? _he wondered as she whipped her head back around, intense worry mixing with sheer joy on her face.

"Oh, Jayne!" she nearly squealed, barely holding back from throwing herself at him. "_Ni hao ma? _I was so scared..."

"Huh?" he puzzled out loud. Suddenly the last thing he remembered from the job resurfaced, and his eyes narrowed. "Where's Mal?" he asked roughly. _Don't tell me I didn't do my job good enough._

"He's just fine. Right and shiny," she insisted when his stubborn stare lost none of it's intensity. "He'll be real happy you're awake, too. Been worried sick, just like everybody was, 'cept of course the captain wouldn't never say it." She was babbling, she knew, but her ecstasy was overwhelming her senses. _Few hours ago I didn't figure I'd ever hear your voice again_, she wanted to burst out. _Hearin' it now...it's like heaven or something. Don't feel like I hardly deserve it, not that I'm going to complain or nothing. Just so shiny._

_ I managed to do my job and live? _ Jayne wondered. _Never figured I had time to get him out of the way._ Noting the white-hot pinprick of agony slowly reasserting itself in his chest, his amazement grew. _Reckon it makes sense that ones of us got hit. Get the feeling I'm real ruttin' lucky to be breathin', judging from the look on Kaylee's face. _His thoughts centered on the woman perched precariously next to him. _Kaylee..._

"How long you been mopin' around down here, girl?" he asked, trying to look around the room for others without actually moving. "You been here alone?"

She nodded. "Mostly. Everybody's been stickin' their heads in to check on ya, though. Nobody's here right now on account of it being the middle of the night and we were almost all up late waitin' for Zoe and the captain to get back from town..."

"Town? Job was an hour out of town," he recalled.

"Wash moved us back closer once they got you home. We had to get blood, you know? Cause you and me are so rare typed and Simon didn't have nothing you could take 'sides plasma. Him and Zoe went in and visited with the doctor in town, got some, but..." Her face darkened as she relived the horrible moment when she had discovered that the first three bottles had done no good whatsoever. _No need to go into the details, he's startin' to shift around some like he's uncomfortable and I ain't said what I started out to yet._ "Well, we needed more so the captain took Zoe and they got enough. And now you're awake, and everything's just...so wonderful now." She scooped up his hand in both of her own and squeezed it.

Jayne had to laugh a little through the pain even as he melted under her affectionate caress. "You're grinnin' wide enough to bust your face, you know," he told her, wincing as every nerve between his wound and his brain lit up angrily.

"It's just...listen, I been thinkin'," she started in, her tone turning serious. "There's something I've been wantin' to say all day, and-" She broke off as he moaned quietly. "You hurtin'?" she inquired immediately. "I can talk faster."

_Talk faster? _"Uh...'kay," he managed, leaving his eyes locked on hers.

"Anyway, like I said I was thinkin', and River and I were talking some right after they brought you in, and I realized that I-" She stopped just on the edge of her declaration as his fingers began shaking slightly in hers. "Jayne?" she asked anxiously. "What's-"

"'Sokay, Kaylee girl. Just say what you were gonna." The edges of his vision were going white now, but he ignored it as best he could. _Whatever she's wantin' to say, she's actin' like it's real important to her. Must be, if she's been sitting down here all day waitin' to say it. Ain't no way I'm gonna be responsible for killin' that excited look she had a second ago when she was talking. _

"You're hurtin'," she said frettingly, holding his hand protectively close. _I wish I could wait til you felt better to tell you, but I just can't. _"But Jayne? I realized..." She could feel the tension running through his entire body as she bent in closer, and wondered if it was just pain or if he was nervous at her being in such intimate quarters. _After all, ain't like he's wearin' much under them blankets. I was so worried about him earlier I didn't think to enjoy that. _"I don't love Simon_, baobei,_" she revealed. "I love you."

His physical torture vanished momentarily as her words hit him. "Cai guai1," he whispered up at her, his eyes wide with shock.

Seeing his disbelief, she nodded, tears standing on the precipices of her eyes as she confirmed what she had said. Her heart swelled as his mouth twisted into the biggest smile she-and consequently anyone on Serenity-had ever seen grace his features. _Wo de me__, I didn't know he could smile like that,_ she gasped internally, the mental snapshot of that look burning itself into her memory.

"_Wo ye ai ni__2__,_" he replied a little shakily. "_Wo ai ni, baobei."_ Then, fingers still tightly entwined in Kaylee's, a lesser version of his brief beaming smile lingering on his lips, he passed out.

After dosing him with the waiting smoother to chase away any pain that might haunt his sleep, she watched him rest, replaying his beaming grin over and over again in her head. When she realized she was having to work to keep from joining him in slumber, she curled back up besides him, nearly purring in her contentment. _Tomorrow's gonna be a real good day,_ she mused absently. _And the next day, and the one after that..._ The subject of her dream reasserted itself, and she made herself a silent promise. _We're gonna do that, first chance we get. All of it. _She snuggled in closer. _Especially that part with the big bed in the swanky hotel. Even order room service. _She grinned wickedly in anticipation against Jayne's shoulder. _Gonna have to get room service, cause he's gonna have one hell of an appetite before I'm done with him._

1No way/are you serious?

2I love you, too.


	33. Haul Away, Jayne

It's back, my wonderfully patient readers! My sincerest apologies that this took so long to update, but my Firefly and Starfox muses have been quarreling rather bitterly over the last few weeks so it's been kind of hard trying to write in either fandom. I fully intend to give my Firefly muse full run of the bridge until this story is complete, however, so please enjoy. And as always, comments make muses deriliously happy...

For anyone wondering where the title for this chapter came from, all credit goes to my boyfriend, who introduced me to the song "Haul Away Joe" by Tommy Makem. When I read the lyrics I realized that they were so...well..._Jayne_...that it was wrong to not give it a little tip of the hat in a chapter somehow. You may see this song again in a Jayne-centric songifc, you never know.

* * *

Wash rolled over with a slight noise, flopping his arm across where his wife should have been laying. Finding nothing more than tangled blankets, he opened his eyes groggily and tried to peer around the dark room without actually moving his head. "Where are you going?" he asked a little petulantly when he spotted her fastening her belt on at the base of the ladder.

"Goin' down to the infirmary real quick. I'll be right back."

"Zoe..." he flopped over onto his back, dropping his arm over his eyes against the faint light that filtered down from the hall when she cracked the hatch. "I just looked in on them before I came to bed. They were both sleeping. Besides," he pouted, "you know I can't sleep without you being close to cuddle with. And you were gone _all night _last night," he added, raising his head to wiggle his eyebrows suggestively.

"I'm coming right back, I told you," Zoe replied affectionately. A small grin crossed her lips as she spied the purple stuffed dinosaur she had won for him in a carnival shooting gallery a few months earlier. Grabbing it, she tossed it onto the bed next to Wash. "You can cuddle with that 'til I get back," she teased.

"You want me to cuddle with a brachiosaurus?" he goggled. "I would have you know that in real life this creature wouldn't even fit comfortably in the cargo bay, let alone in our bed."

"Yes, dear," she acquiesced, shaking her head as she turned to ascend to the passageway.

"This thing could crush me!" he warned with mock seriousness just before she closed the hatch behind her. Still smiling internally at her husband's antics, she made her way quietly down to the infirmary. As she walked past first Jayne's and then Kaylee's bunk, her mouth twisted upward again. _Reckon there might be a bit of house-moving between those two soon enough. Wonder who's bunk they'll end up keeping? Can't imagine Jayne being very willing to move his whole arsenal down the hall. Then again, Kaylee's done an awful lot of work making her space all...pink._ Trying to envision Jayne's spartan room being redecorated by Kaylee's paintbrush and passion for pastels, she snorted mildly. _If I hadn't figured out that that old line about opposites attractin' was true when Wash and I got married, I'd sure be figuring it out about now._

The infirmary windows glowed a faint greenish-yellow from the monitor lights as she approached. Seeing that someone had closed the door, she paused momentarily and wondered if there might be something going on inside that she had no need to see. _Kaylee wouldn't be foolish enough to try and jump him so soon after the kind of hurt he's got, surely, _she reasoned finally. Just in case, she peeked in through the glass before reaching for the door and was gratified to see them both sleeping.

She stepped into the semi-dark and made her way to the bedside, glancing up at the monitors in curiosity. _Looks better than earlier,_ she noted approvingly. _Still ain't great, but it's better. Good._ _Wish there was a little light in here that wasn't colored so I could see if he's any less pale, though. Looks like I'd better put another bottle up, that one's gettin' kind of low._ With that thought she turned and opened the wall cooler, smiling at the stack of B negative she had placed there a few hours earlier. _Jayne's going to be ticked he missed out on all the fun. Guess we'll just have to make sure we have a little on the next job around. Preferably_, she added, _with nobody ending up down here. _Hoping that her silent wish would come true, she grabbed the top bottle and closed the door before all the refrigerated air could escape.

Once the transfusion line was hooked up to the fresh jar, she followed the plastic tubing down to where the needle dove under Jayne's still-cool skin. As she checked that the medical tape holding the line in place was still secure, she felt his arm move slightly, twitching away from her touch. _I'm probably pushing on a bruise,_ she realized, pulling her hand back. _His arm's goin' to be tender for a while, as many times as it took to get the needle in right. _

"Zoe?" she heard as she turned to leave. Wheeling back, she saw that Kaylee had raised her head from Jayne's shoulder and was staring at her in befuddlement. "What...what time is it?"

"I don't honestly know," Zoe admitted. "Early."

"Everything alright?" the mechanic asked worriedly. Even in the dark the second in command could see her arm tighten protectively around the man beside her.

"Seems so. The monitors are looking better, at least."

"Oh, good," she sighed in relief. A moment later her face lit up in a smile as she remembered what had happened since she had seen Zoe last. "He woke up earlier," she crowed happily. "Talked some and everything. That's good, right?"

"It is," she assured her, feeling strain lift off of her shoulders at the news. _I knew you were too stubborn to let one little bullet get ya,_ she thought triumphantly. "Did you get your piece said?"

Kaylee nodded, her smile softening. "Reckon I'm 'bout the luckiest girl in the whole Verse, too, cause he loves me right back," she shared. "I'm so happy, Zoe, I feel like I could explode or somethin'."

"Best not go doing that," the standing woman warned laughingly. "I don't think Jayne'd be too pleased about it."

"'Specially if you went and exploded afore I even got ya in the sack a few times," a hoarse male voice broke in, making both women jump.

Kaylee recovered first, squealing in delight as she bent down for a kiss. "Oh, _baobei_, you're awake again! You ain't hurtin', are you?" she demanded, her tone traveling from rapture to urgency.

"Nah, 'm okay for a little bit. Just heard you two gigglin' is all. Wanted to be part of the fun." He hadn't opened his eyes despite speaking, figuring that every ounce of energy he saved by keeping them closed was another few seconds of wakefulness he could spend with the warm girl beside him.

"Don't think you ought to be trying to have any 'fun' for a while yet," Zoe commented playfully, her own pleasure at the mercenary's alertness clear in her voice. "Even if Kaylee does threaten to explode."

"She better not be doing no explodin', least not unless I'm the one makin' her explode," he replied as lecherously as he could manage, smiling a little when Kaylee tittered in embarrassed joy at the thought. He made a face as he realized how parched he was. _Ruttin' hate this room. Ain't never enough moisture in the air to keep a person from dryin' out. _"There any water down here?" he managed to spit out, suddenly all too aware of the way his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth.

"Here," Zoe answered, swiftly turning on the tap to the scrub sink and filling one of the small plastic cups they kept in the infirmary out of habit. "Think you can manage, or do you want me to try and rustle up a straw?"

"Ain't got the energy to wait on no straw," Jayne muttered, weakly trying to extend his hand to take the liquid. "Ow," he complained as the tape on his arm kept him tethered to the short transfusion line and prevented him from reaching out fully.

"Relax," Zoe instructed him as she slipped a hand behind his head and lifted him up enough to drink successfully. "Ain't got to do everything by yourself, you know. Last time I checked it wasn't a crime to ask for help when you need it."

"Mebbe..."

"Oh, quit worryin' about your reputation, silly," Kaylee purred as she kissed his forehead. "Zoe's right, ain't no crime in needin' help, 'specially not when it's crew you're askin' for it from. 'Sides," she baited him, "we all already know you're terrible fearsome."

"Damn straight I am, _ni zi__1_," he answered. "Also happen to still be terrible thirsty."

"It's comin'," Zoe told him as she handed the refilled cup over to Kaylee. "I'll grab you a pitcher from the kitchen and leave it on the counter so you don't have to get up every time Mr. Terrible Fearsome here wants a drink," she told the younger woman.

"Thanks, Zoe," she said almost mechanically, her attention riveted on Jayne as she slid her fingers underneath his neck. "Here, honey, you've got ta to be bone-dry," she crooned as he easily drained the small vessel of every drop. "More?"

"'M all right," he said quietly, leaning his face into Kaylee's hand once it moved out from beneath his head. "Just tired."

"Go to sleep, _qing ren__2__,_" she whispered back. "I ain't goin' nowhere."

"_Nuo yan__3__?_" he mumbled against her palm. _Need you here with me, Kaylee girl._

"I promise. Now rest, and maybe next time you wake up it'll be time to eat somethin'."

He made a satisfied noise at that suggestion before he slipped back into unconsciousness, leaving the women in the infirmary grinning at one another. "I just knew he'd be fine and dandy once we got him some blood."

"You were right," Zoe acknowledged. "I'm glad you were, too. This boat...well, it wouldn't be the same without him."

"Nope. Serenity needs her grouchy, grumbly Jayne, same as I do. Everything'd be off kilter otherwise. Wouldn't feel right."

"Yup." She leaned in the doorway for a moment longer before she straightened and spoke again, changing the subject. "You going to want breakfast down here again in the morning?"

"Don't really like the idea of leavin' him for long, and the Captain'll yell at me if he thinks I'm eatin' too fast. He always says I'm goin' to make myself sick," she said apologetically. "You don't mind, do you? Bringin' it down and all? I know it's extra work-"

"It's fine," Zoe consoled her. "Don't worry about it. It ain't that much extra work." _Be nice if he does manage to eat something come morning. That'd be another good sign. Much as I hate to even think it, this could still go rotten on us. He's still awful weak. _"I'll be right back with that water."

"'Kay. Thanks."

As she walked back towards the kitchen, she tried to remember if they had any decent food left over from the last time they'd been paid. _Jayne saved the captain's life, I reckon he deserves a real breakfast. That _go se _we ate this morning wouldn't make much of a 'glad you didn't kick the bucket' meal, that's for sure._

Mal looked up wearily from his seat at the table when she entered. "Mornin'," she greeted him.

"Is it morning?" he asked half-hopefully. "Seems like this day has gone on forever."

"Technically been three days now, at least for you. You need a break? I can take the rest of the watch."

"Might have to take you up on that," Mal conceded. "What are you lookin' for?" he inquired as she began to meticulously search the cabinets.

"Breakfast food," she answered simply, not pausing in her search.

"Good luck. I figured it was all protein pancakes from here until the first planet with a decent market."

"_Cao dan,_" she cursed quietly as the final cupboard turned up nothing. "That figures."

"Zoe..."

"Yes, captain?"

He scratched his head for a moment, looking confused. "Did I forget you and Wash's anniversary again or somethin'?"

"No. That ain't for another three months." Now she, too, wore a flustered expression., crossing her arms as she rested against the counter. "Why d'you ask?"

"Can't figure out why you're cursing about us not having real food for breakfast, that's all. "

"Oh. Jayne's awake."

Mal's jaw dropped slightly. "Already? I'd a figured on him being out another day, at least, what with all that cutting and sewing he went through."

"Well, I just spoke with him, and he was far from incoherent. He wasn't up terribly long, but he managed to get off a joke or two before he fell back asleep. Asked for some water, too," she remembered, reopening one of the cabinets and pulling out a pitcher. "Told them I'd bring this down so Kaylee wouldn't have to get up every time his mouth gets to feeling dusty."

"So...you said he wasn't awake long?"

"Just a couple of minutes. Long enough for me to think he might really be okay, if we stay lucky."

_Sounds like I'd better get to work on that apology I owe him,_ Mal thought. _Least I won't have to give it as part of his eulogy. _He wasn't a fan of swallowing his pride and admitting that he'd made a mistake, especially not to the person he'd been mistaken about, but in this case doing so was far better than the alternative. "Hey, Zoe?" he called after her as she started to leave with the dripping pitcher.

"Yes, sir?"

"You seriously don't mind taking the rest of the shift?"

"I'll take it off your hands, if you want."

"What I want is sleep. And that jug." Standing, he came forward around the table and took it from her. "I'll take it down. Like to...uh...make one more round of the ship, just make sure everyone's all bundled in tight for the night. It's on my way."

"Right, captain," she said knowingly, relinquishing the container. "I'll just go check in with Wash while you make your last circle, then."

"You do that, Zoe." Trying to ignore the amused sparkle in her eye as she left him with wet hands and an awkward look on his face, he started for the infirmary. _Did ya have to fill it all the way to the top? _He mentally bitched as the water sloshed dangerously close to the edge. _Ain't like he'd have noticed any different if you'd left an inch of air in there. Would have made my life easier, though. _

"Simon better not have left any wires running on the ground," he complained as he picked his way toward the bed where two of his crew slept. "Can't see a gorram thing in these green lights." _If I trip and wake him, Kaylee'll have my head. Hell, I'll have my head. He shouldn't be awake already, he needs to rest. Don't need no Core-bred _hun dan _of a doctor to tell me that the first thing a person needs after they been shot is to rest. _

Somehow he made it to the counter without falling over anything, and managed to set the water down with minimal spillage. _There. That's done. Now I just got to get back out of here nice and sneaky-like, and I can get some-_

"Captain?"

He let out a low string of curses, barely managing to control the level of his voice. "Gah!" he ended finally as his eyes came level with Kaylee's. "Are you tryin' to give me a heart attack, popping up like that?" he demanded in a whisper, glancing nervously over her shoulder to where Jayne still slept. _He just went back to sleep, Zoe said, last thing he needs is to be woken up again right now._

"_Fang xin__4__," _Kaylee whispered back as she realized the object of his concern. "He's real tired, poor thing. Don't suppose he'll wake up 'til he wants another smoother. Hopin' it'll be around breakfast so I can get him to eat something." She looked at Mal hopefully. "We got any real food on board, cap'n?"

He sighed heavily. "Zoe was looking for the same thing a while ago. Didn't find nothing decent, though, so he's gonna be stuck with protein like the rest of us." The look on her face at those words made him feel like the biggest ass in the Verse, even though he knew she didn't blame him for the ship's current shortage of victuals.

"Sure hope he can hold it down," she fidgeted. "Protein don't sit very good when you ain't feelin' right to start with."

"Soon as we get to a planet where Zoe and I ain't just knocked off the local physician, we'll get a bunch of good stuff," he promised suddenly. "Get him the biggest steak that ever grew on a cow."

"That sounds awful shiny, cap'n," she said excitedly, her wide, soulful eyes gleaming at the idea. "Can't wait to tell him 'bout it next time he wakes up. Might help him with the protein some, too, knowin' he's got real food coming down the line a bit."

Mal found himself frowning at that. "It won't be much of a surprise if you tell him about it," he pointed out.

"Don't you want him to know it was your idea?"

"Don't know that it's really necessary. We've only got the money to do it on account of what he did, after all." _Same as I'm only standing here on account of that fool move of his._

"Well, I think he ought to know you want ta buy a big feast for him," the mechanic parried easily. "He didn't look too convinced when I told him you was worried 'bout him earlier. Maybe when he hears you put ship money into a steak he'll believe it better."

Mal flinched at that. _Can't say I blame him for not thinking I cared. I ain't done much of a job of showing it. Still...I sure as hell hope he didn't hear what I said out there. Hate to have to apologize for that, too. _He nodded after a minute. "You tell him if you want to, Kaylee," he said finally. "Whatever makes you happy." He trudged to the door, his exhaustion weighing down heavier with each moment that he tried to formulate an apology in his mind and failed to find one that he felt expressed his remorse. "Take care of him, Kaylee," he instructed her from the doorway, unconsciously using his captain's voice. "You holler if you need something." _Number one priority on this boat's getting him healed up and the two of you all settled. _He nearly smirked at that last thought. _Never would have bet in my life that I would find myself approving of a match between sweet little Kaylee and __Jayne__, of all people. Just when I think I got this boat under control, damn crew goes and switches things up on me again. _He sighed as he headed for his bunk and a few hours of much-deserved rest. _Gorram it, anyway._

1Little girl

2Another word for sweetheart/lover

3Promise?

4Don't worry


End file.
